n10k.htm



 
UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington D.C. 20549
 
 
FORM 10-K
 
(Mark One)
x
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
 
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2009
 
OR
 
¨
TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
 
For the Transition Period from                      to                     
 
Commission File Number: 000-50838
 
NETLOGIC MICROSYSTEMS, INC.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
 
     
Delaware
 
77-0455244
(State or Other Jurisdiction of Incorporation)
 
(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)
   
1875 Charleston Road, Mountain View, California
 
94043
(Address of principal executive office)
 
(Zip Code)

(650) 961-6676
(Registrant’s telephone number, including area code)

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
  Title of each class     Name of each exchange on which registered
Common Stock, $0.01 par value per share
 
The NASDAQ Stock Market LLC

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
 
  Title of each class     Name of each exchange on which registered
Series AA Junior Participating Preferred Stock, $0.01 par value per share
 
None
 
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.    Yes   ¨     No   x

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.    Yes   ¨     No   x

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.    Yes    x      No    ¨
 
     Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files).    Yes   ¨     No   ¨

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.    ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, or a non-accelerated filer. See definition of “large accelerated filer”, “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one.)

Large accelerated filer  ¨    Accelerated filer  x    Non-accelerated filer (Do not check if a smaller reporting company)  ¨
Smaller reporting company  ¨

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.):    Yes   ¨     No   x

The aggregate market value of the voting stock held by non-affiliates of the registrant as of June 30, 2009, the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, was approximately $679,787,184 (based on the last reported sale price of $36.46 on June 30, 2009).

28,746,887 shares of the Registrant’s common stock, par value $0.01 per share, were outstanding as of January 31, 2010.

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

Portions registrant’s proxy statement to be delivered to stockholders in connection with the registrant’s 2010 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be held on or about May 7, 2010 are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Form 10-K. The registrant intends to file its proxy statement within 120 days after its fiscal year end.
 


 
NETLOGIC MICROSYSTEMS, INC.
FISCAL 2009 FORM 10-K

TABLE OF CONTENTS
 
         
 
  
 
  
Page
  
 
  
 
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    Item 1B.
  
  
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    Item 7A.
  
  
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    Item 9A.
  
  
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    Item 9B.
  
  
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    Item 10.
  
  
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PART I

Forward-looking Statements

This report contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, which include, without limitation, statements about our future business operations and results, the market for our technology, our strategy and competition. Such statements are based upon current expectations that involve risks and uncertainties. Any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed forward-looking statements. For example, the words “believes”, “anticipates”, “plans”, “expects”, “intends” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Our actual results and the timing of certain events may differ significantly from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that might cause such a discrepancy include, but are not limited to, those discussed in “Business”, “Risks Factors”, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk” below. All forward-looking statements in this report are based on information available to us as of the date of this report, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. The information contained in this report should be read in conjunction with our condensed financial statements and the accompanying notes contained in this report. Unless expressly stated or the context otherwise requires, the terms “we”, “our”, “us” and “NetLogic Microsystems” refer to NetLogic Microsystems, Inc.
 
ITEM 1.
BUSINESS.
 
Overview
 
    We are a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and sells proprietary high-performance processors and high-speed integrated circuits that are used to enhance the performance and functionality of advanced 3G/4G mobile wireless infrastructure, data center, enterprise, metro Ethernet, edge and core infrastructure networks.  Our market-leading product portfolio includes high-performance multi-core processors, knowledge-based processors, high-speed 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) physical layer (PHY) devices, network search engines, and ultra low-power embedded processors.  These products are designed into high-performance systems such as switches, routers, wireless base stations, radio network controllers, security appliances, networked storage appliances, service gateways and connected media devices offered by leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as AlaxalA Networks Corporation, Alcatel-Lucent, ARRIS Group, Inc., Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell Inc., Ericsson, Fortinet, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co. Ltd., Hitachi, Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Huawei Symantec Technologies Co.,Ltd , IBM Corporation, Juniper Networks, Inc. , LG Electronics, Inc., Motorola, Inc., NEC Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Tellabs, and ZTE Corporation.
 
    The products and technologies we have developed and acquired are targeted to enable our customers to develop systems that support the increasing speeds and complexity of the Internet infrastructure. We believe there is a growing need to include multi-core processors, knowledge-based processors, and high speed physical layer devices in a larger number of such systems as networks transition to all Internet Protocol (IP) packet processing at increasing speeds and complexity.
 
    In 2009 we continued to broaden our customer base and our product portfolio, as well as strengthen our competitive positioning and research and development capabilities, by entering into strategic acquisitions, including:

 
 
The acquisition of the network search engine business from Integrated Devices Technology, Inc. (the “IDT NSE Acquisition”) in July 2009. The acquisition was accounted for as a business combination during the third quarter of fiscal 2009. As purchase consideration we paid $98.2 million in cash, net of a price adjustment based on a determination of the actual amount of inventory received.
 

 
 
The acquisition of RMI Corporation, or RMI, a provider of high-performance and low-power multi-core, multi-threaded processors. Pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger Reorganization by and among us, Roadster Merger Corporation, RMI Corporation and WP VIII Representative LLC dated as of May 31, 2009, or the merger agreement, on October 30, 2009, Roadster Merger Corporation was merged with and into RMI, and we delivered merger consideration of approximately 5.0 million shares of our common stock and $12.6 million cash to the paying agent for distribution to the holders of RMI capital stock. Approximately 10% of the shares of our common stock are being held in escrow as security for claims and expenses that might arise during the first 12 months following the closing date. We may be required to pay up to an additional 1.6 million shares of common stock and $15.9 million cash to the former holders of RMI capital stock as earn-out consideration based upon achieving specified percentages of revenue targets for either the 12-month period from October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010, or the 12-month period from November 1, 2009 through October 31, 2010, whichever period results in the higher percentage of the revenue target. The additional earn-out consideration, if any, net of applicable indemnity claims, will be paid on or before December 31, 2010.
 
Our Markets
 
    We sell our products primarily to OEMs that supply networking equipment for the Internet infrastructure, which consists of various networking systems that process packets of information to enable communication between the networking systems. This networking equipment includes routers, switches, application acceleration equipment, network security appliances, network access equipment and networked storage devices that are utilized by networking systems such as:
 
 
 
core networks, for long-distance city-to-city communications which may span hundreds or thousands of miles;
 
 
 
enterprise networks, for internal corporate communications, including access to storage environments;
 
 
 
datacenter networks, for high-density server farms;
 
 
 
metro networks, for intra-city communications which may span several miles;
 
 
 
edge networks, which link core, metro, enterprise and access networks; and
 
 
 
access networks, which connect individual users to the edge network.
 
 
    Sales of IP based networking equipment have increased overall during the past five years, as the Internet has continued to grow and evolve to accommodate the continued growth in the amount of digital media content available and provide converged support for the quad-play applications of voice, data, video and mobility over a single unified IP infrastructure. These applications include:
 
 
 
mobile Internet services (delivery of data, voice and video to mobile devices);
 
 
 
cloud computing and data center virtualization;
 
 
 
Internet Protocol television, or IPTV;
 
 
 
video on demand, or VoD;
 
 
 
voice transmission over the Internet, or VoIP;
 
 
 
on-line gaming;
 
 
 
filtering of malware (e.g., virus, spyware and spam) and intrusion attempts;
 
 
 
email communications;
 
 
 
e-commerce;
 
 
 
music, picture and video file downloading and sharing to mobile devices such as cell phones and portable music/video devices; and
 
 
 
Internet browsing and video portal viewing delivered over the IP infrastructure to cell phones and other mobile devices.
 
 
    Due to the increased usage of the Internet, as well as the greater complexity of the Internet-based infrastructure to support quad-play applications, OEM systems must increasingly make complex decisions about individual packets of information using knowledge about the overall network, which includes the method and manner  in which networking systems are interconnected, as well as traffic patterns and congestion points, connection availability, user-based privileges, priorities and other attributes. These OEM systems also need knowledge about the content carried by the network and the applications that use the network. Using this knowledge of the network to make complex decisions about individual packets of information involves network awareness, while using knowledge of packet content to make complex decisions about individual packets of information involves content awareness, also known as deep-packet inspection. Network awareness and content awareness include the following:
 
 
 
preferential transmission of packets based upon assigned priority;
 
 
 
restrictions on access based upon security designations;
 
 
 
changes to packet forwarding destinations based upon traffic patterns and bandwidth availability, or packet content; and
 
 
 
addition or deletion of information about networks and users and applications.
 
    Moreover, network and content awareness in advanced systems require multiple classes of packet processing, in addition to forwarding packets in the network. These additional classes of processing include access control for network security, prioritization of packets to maintain quality of service (QoS) and statistical measurement of internet traffic for transaction billing. Compared to the basic processing task of forwarding, these additional classes of packet processing require a significantly higher degree of processing of IP packets to enable network and content awareness, or network-aware and content-aware processing.
 
    Further, in designing high performance systems, networking OEMs need to address other performance issues, such as power dissipation. Minimizing the power dissipated by integrated circuits is becoming more important for networking systems such as routers and switches, which are increasingly designed in smaller form factors. As a result, networking OEMs increasingly seek third party providers of advanced processing solutions that complement their core competencies to enable network and content awareness within their systems and meet their escalating performance requirements for rapid processing speeds, complex decision-processing capabilities, low power dissipation, small form factor and rapid time-to-market.
 
 
Our Strategy
 
    Our objectives are to be the leading provider of network-aware and content-aware processing solutions, high-speed multi-core, multi-threaded processors, as well as 10 to 100 Gigabit PHY layer solutions, to networking OEMs and to expand into new markets and applications. To achieve these goals, we are pursuing the following strategies:
 
    Maintain and Extend our Market and Technology Leadership Positions. We were the first supplier: (i) to offer a knowledge-based processor with a high-speed serial interface; (ii) to offer a “hybrid” architecture that integrates our advanced Sahasra™ algorithmic technology with knowledge-based processing engines; (iii) to offer a knowledge-based processor capable of delivering 1.6 billion decisions per second of deterministic performance; (iv) to offer 225Gbps of interconnect bandwidth, 256 thousand IPv6 database entries and 1 million Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) data entries; (v) the first supplier to achieve 1.0 Volt operation of knowledge-based processors for lower power dissipation; and (vi) to achieve operating frequencies of up to 500 MHz. We were also the first supplier of knowledge-based processors that are capable of processing application networking and security functions with a single 10 Gigabit-per-second engine. In addition, we were the first supplier of quad-port 10 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit PHY solutions targeted at next-generation carrier optical transport networks and advanced data-center networks. We intend to expand our market and technology leadership positions by continuing to invest in the development of successive generations of our knowledge-based processors, multi-core processors, 10/40/100 Gigabit PHYs and our other products to meet the increasingly high performance needs of networking OEMs, and as well as potentially acquire such capabilities through strategic partnerships and purchases of other businesses when we encounter favorable opportunities. We intend to leverage our engineering capabilities and continue to invest significant resources in recruiting and developing additional expertise in the area of high performance circuit design, custom circuit layout, high performance Input/Output interfaces, and applications engineering. By utilizing our proprietary design methodologies, we intend to continue to target the most demanding, advanced applications for our products.
 
    Focus on Long-Term Relationships with Industry-Leading OEM Customers. The design and product life cycles of our OEM customers’ products have traditionally been lengthy, and we work with our OEM customers at the pre-design and design stages. As a result, our sales process typically requires us to maintain a long-term commitment and close working relationship with our existing and potential OEM customers. This process involves significant collaboration between our engineering teams and the engineering teams of our OEM customers, and typically involves the concurrent development of our processors and the internally-designed packet processors of our OEM customers. We intend to continue to focus on building long-term relationships with industry-leading networking OEMs to facilitate the adoption of our products and to gain greater insight into the needs of our OEM customers.
 
    Leverage Technologies to Create New Products and Pursue New Market Opportunities. We intend to leverage our core design expertise to develop our products for a broader range of applications to further expand our market opportunities. We plan to address new market segments that are increasingly adopting network-aware processing, such as corporate storage networks that use IP-based packet-switching networking protocols. By utilizing our proprietary design methodologies, we intend to continue to target the most demanding, advanced applications for our products.
 
    Capitalize on Highly Focused Business Model. We are a fabless semiconductor company, utilizing third parties to manufacture, assemble and test our products. This approach reduces our capital and operating requirements and enables us to focus greater resources on product development. We work closely with our wafer foundries to incorporate advanced process technologies in our solutions to achieve higher levels of performance and to reduce costs. These technologies include advanced 130, 110, 80, 55 and 40 nanometer complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processing nodes with up to eight layers of copper interconnect and 300 millimeter wafer sizes. Our business model allows us to benefit from the large manufacturing investment of our wafer foundries which are able to leverage their investment across many markets.
 
    Expand International Presence. We sell our products on a worldwide basis and utilize a network of direct sales, independent sales representatives and distributors in the U.S., Europe and Asia. We intend to continue to expand our sales and technical support organization to broaden our customer reach in new markets. We believe that Asia, in particular China and Europe, where we have already established customer relationships, provides the potential for significant additional long-term growth for our products. Given the continued globalization of OEM supply chains, particularly with respect to design and manufacturing, we believe that having a global presence will become increasingly important for securing new customers and design wins and to support OEMs in bringing their products to markets.
 

Our Products
 
    Our products include high-performance knowledge-based processors, multi-core processors, NETLite processors, network search engines, 10/40/100 GE PHY products, and ultra low-power Alchemy® processors.
 
Knowledge-based Processors
 
    Knowledge-based processors are integrated circuits that employ an advanced processor architecture and a large knowledge or signature database containing information on the network, as well as applications and content that run on the network, to make complex decisions about individual packets of information traveling through the network. Our knowledge-based processors significantly enhance the ability of networking OEMs to supply network service providers with systems offering more advanced functionality for the Internet, such as support for IPTV, VoIP, unified threat management (UTM), virtual private networks (VPNs), rich content delivery over mobile wireless networks, and streaming video and audio.
 
    Our knowledge-based processors incorporate advanced technologies that enable rapid processing, such as a superscalar architecture, which uses parallel-processing techniques, and deep pipelining, which segments processing tasks into smaller sub-tasks, for higher decision throughput. These technologies enable wireline and wireless networking systems to perform a broad range of network-aware and content-aware processing functions, such as application-based routing, UTM network security, intrusion detection and prevention, virus inspection, access control for network security, prioritization of traffic flow to maintain quality of service and statistical measurement of Internet traffic for transaction billing.
 
    Layer 3-4 Knowledge-based Processors. Layers 3 and 4 refer to the data and transport layers, respectively, of the OSI reference model. For networking infrastructure that supports Layer 3-4 routing, decisions on how to handle IP packets are made using the data that is contained in the packet header. The packet header information consists of key data regarding the packet, including the IP address of the system that generated the packet, referred to as the source IP address, and the IP address of the device to which the packet is to be transmitted, referred to as the destination IP address. Our proprietary NL5000, NL6000, NL7000, NL8000 and NL9000 and NL11000 families of knowledge-based processors operate in conjunction with an OEM-developed custom integrated circuits, programmable logic devices, and one or more network processing units (NPUs), and feature a proprietary interface that provides advanced interface technology to enable networking OEMs to meet their system performance requirements for Layer 3-4 processing. We also provide versions of our proprietary interface knowledge-based processors that work with proprietary custom integrated circuits and application software developed by or in collaboration with Cisco Systems.  We offer knowledge-based processors with a range of knowledge database sizes, and all of our knowledge-based processors are designed to be connected in groups to increase the knowledge database available for processing.
 
    We offer knowledge-based processors with a range of knowledge database sizes, and all of our knowledge-based processors are designed to be connected in groups to increase the knowledge database available for processing.
 
    In 2009, we collaborated with one of our long-time foundry partners Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to complete the migration of our knowledge-based processor family to the 55 nanometer (nm) process node. Additionally, we recently announced our NL111024 knowledge-based processor fabricated on TSMC’s 40 nm process node. The NL111024 processor includes an enhanced knowledge-based processing core capable of achieving 1.6 billion decisions per second (BDPS) and integrates our serializer-deserializer (SerDes) technology from our physical layer products to provide a serial interface that delivers 225 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of chip-to-chip interconnect bandwidth.  This high performance input/output (I/O) bandwidth is particularly useful in processing Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) traffic.
 
    We also offer our Sahasra family of knowledge-based processors which use advanced algorithms to achieve low power dissipation and are particularly well suited for applications using exact match or longest-prefix match functions. This family of devices scales up to 1.5 million IPv4 entries in a single device.
 
 
    NETL7™ Layer 7 Knowledge-based Processors. For networking infrastructure that supports Layer 7 routing, decisions on how to handle IP packets are made using the information that is contained in the packet payload or packet content. The packet content contains the actual data being transmitted between applications using the network. Layer 7 of the OSI reference model, known as the application layer, facilitates communication between software applications and lower-layer network services. Our NETL7TM knowledge-based processors are designed to accelerate Layer 7 content processing and signature recognition tasks for enterprise and carrier-class networks.
 
    In April 2009 we announced the NLS2008 processor, which is the newest member of our NETL7 knowledge-based processor family. The NLS2008 is the first processor capable of deterministically performing Layer 7 content aware processing functions at 120 Gbps.
 
NETLite™ Processors
 
    Our NETLite™ processor family is specifically designed for cost-sensitive, high-volume applications such as entry-level switches, routers and access equipment. The NETLite processor family leverages circuit techniques developed and refined during the design of our knowledge-based processor families, and benefits from die size optimization, lower power dissipation and redundant computing techniques. In addition, the NETLite processors utilize a simplified pipeline architecture, as compared to our knowledge based processors, that allows for lower cost manufacturing and assembly in less expensive packages, and allows for lower cost system designs. As such, the NETLite processors are ideal for entry-level systems that do not require the advanced parallel processing and deep pipelining performance of our high-end knowledge-based processors.
 
    Our NETLite processors also include the Ayama™10000 and Ayama 20000 processors. We offer these processors in densities ranging from 128K to 512K IPv4 entries, and they include differentiated features such as Mini-Key™ power management. The Ayama 20000 processors incorporate all the features of the Ayama 10000 processors and work seamlessly with industry-leading network processors and Ethernet switchers. To help reduce development time and cost, we also offer the Ayama processors with our Cynapse™ software platform for customers to more easily integrate these processors into their systems.
 
Network Search Engines
 
    We continue to provide network search engine products including those we acquired from IDT in July 2009, the TCAM2 products we purchase from Cypress Semiconductor Corporation in August 2009, and our legacy network search engines, which include the NSE1000 through NSE4000, the NSE70000 network search engine families and the NSE3128GLM network search engines, a device that interfaces directly to certain NPUs from Applied Micro Circuits Corporation. We introduced our network search engine products between 1998 and 2001. These products are fabricated by UMC or TSMC using a range of process technologies from 0.35 micron to 0.15 micron.
 
High Performance Multi-Core Processors – RMI Acquisition
 
    We offer a range of high performance, highly integrated, feature-rich XLR®, XLS® and XLPTM multi-core processor solutions that provide high throughput, power efficiency, application and content awareness and security for the evolving global network. These processors serve infrastructure equipment, enterprise systems and connected media markets within the global network with a wide range of features and performance configurations. Our multi-core solutions can replace a number of single function semiconductors through a highly integrated processing solution which provides customers with greater ease of design and faster time-to-market for their products.
 
    Our multi-core processors offer up to four-way multi-threading cores that allow each thread to act as a virtual central processing unit, or vCPUTM, thereby making each processor core capable of much higher throughput than a non-threaded core. The proprietary processor architecture also implements a high-speed Memory Distributed Interconnect® network, consisting of a Fast Messaging Network® and point-to-point interconnects, enabling high-speed communication between cores, accelerators and network interfaces and more efficient memory access. The processors also include Autonomous Acceleration Engines ® that enable them to offload computationally intensive software code from the processing cores to an on-chip hardware component for faster and more power-efficient execution. As a result, our processors can perform multiple complex and specialized tasks such as network traffic prioritization and application and content inspection without utilizing processor core resources. In addition, all of our processors incorporate security processing engines or algorithms for secure connectivity and communications.
 
    In the communications equipment market, our processor architecture integrates network accelerators, memory access accelerators, compression and decompression engines, and high performance network interconnects. This allows our customers to develop systems with fewer semiconductor components as well as systems that perform a broader range of functions. This level of integration eliminates the need for separate co-processors, digital signal processors and the associated complexity of software for each additional processing component.
 
    XLR® Processor Family. Our multi-core, multi-threaded XLR processor family is a high throughput, feature-rich processor solution for a wide variety of high-performance infrastructure equipment, enterprise networking, security and storage systems. The XLR processors enable applications, such as integrated security, convergence of voice, data and video applications (i.e., “triple play applications”), virtualized storage, load balancing and server offload, as well as content and application aware, multi-service routing and switching. All XLR processors are software- and pin- compatible and available in a variety of power options, enabling scalable system designs within a single platform.
 
    XLS® Processor Family. Our XLS processor family offers mid- to entry- level derivative versions of our XLR’s multi-core, multi-threaded architecture. The XLS processors leverage the XLR’s performance, scalability and technology and incorporate additional advanced innovations. XLS processors address applications that demand smaller form factors and lower power consumption. Our XLS processors are pin compatible within each series and software compatible across all XLS and XLR processor families.
 
 
    XLPTM Processor Family. Our latest generation XLP processor family is based on the XLR processor multi-core, multi-threaded architecture, and features a multi-issue design and up to three times higher throughput per Watt than the XLR processors with memory cache systems, and internal and peripheral interconnects expanded to match the higher throughput. The XLP processors are expected to enable applications, such as integrated security, quad-play applications, virtualized storage, load balancing and server offload, as well as content and application aware, multi-service routing and switching. The XLP processors are designed on an advanced 40 nm process and are expected to be available for sampling to customers in 2010.
 
Ultra Low-Power Processor Family – RMI Acquisition
 
    Alchemy®  Ultra-Low Power Embedded Processors. Our industry-leading Alchemy®  processor family comprises our industry leading embedded processors that deliver the powerful processing performance, ultra low-power functionality and market specific integration required for next-generation products like enterprise thin clients, automotive infotainment, telematics, and other media-rich embedded applications. Our ultra low-power embedded Alchemy processor cores are based on the standard MIPS® processor instruction set.  We utilize very low power microprocessor design techniques and utilize low voltage and low leakage cell libraries, which allow us to incorporate high power efficient cores in our chips.

 
10
 
 
Physical Layer Products
 
    Our PHY family of products provides high-performance, single, dual and quad-channel low-power interface technology for high-density data communication and storage systems, and offers comprehensive support for multiple 10/40/100 GE standards. The PHY products also integrate advanced electronic dispersion compensation technology. We expect our PHY family of products to benefit from the same market drivers as our knowledge-based processors and multi-core processors, including growth in 10 GE ports in switches and routers, data center servers, upgrades of the telecom infrastructure to support IPTV, and the deployment of the 10/40/100 GE IP-backbone for advanced mobile wireless networks.
 
    In July 2009, we announced our NLP2040 and NLP3040 PHY products, which are the first single-die, quad-port 10 GE PHY devices on the market, and which are manufactured using TSMC’s 40 nm process node. Additionally, we announced our NLP10000 PHY solution which is the first 100 GE PHY solution on the market. These technology advances in our PHY solutions have enabled us to offer our customers scalability for data-center, metro and long haul applications that require the highest performance while maximizing energy efficiency. Also, in November 2009, we announced production availability of our NLP1220 dual-port 8.5 Gbps FibreChannel PHY repeater device with an integrated low-power equalization engine targeted at data center switches and enterprise storage markets.
 
 Customers
 
    The markets for networking, communication infrastructure, security and storage systems utilizing our products and services are mainly served by large OEMs, such as AlaxalA Networks Corporation, Alcatel-Lucent, ARRIS Group, Inc., Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.,  Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell Inc., Ericsson, Fortinet, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co. Ltd,Hitachi, Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Huawei Symantec Technologies Co.,Ltd , IBM Corporation, Juniper Networks, Inc., LG Electronics, Inc., Motorola, Inc., NEC Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Tellabs, and ZTE Corporation.
 
    We work with these and other OEMs to understand their requirements, and provide them with solutions that they then qualify and, in some cases, specify for use within their systems. While we sell directly to some OEMs, we also provide our products and services indirectly to other OEMs through their contract manufacturers, who in turn assemble our products into systems for delivery to our OEM customers. Sales to contract manufacturers accounted for 43%, 41%, and 65% of total revenue in 2009, 2008, and 2007, respectively. Sales of our products are generally made under short-term, cancelable purchase orders. As a result, our ability to predict future sales in any given period is limited and subject to change based on demand for our OEM customers’ systems and their supply chain decisions.
 
    We also provide our products and services indirectly to our OEM customers through our international stocking sales representatives. Our stocking sales representatives are independent entities that assist us in identifying and servicing foreign networking OEMs and generally purchase our products directly from us for resale to OEMs or contract manufacturers located outside the U.S. These international stocking sales representatives generally exclusively service a particular foreign region or customer base, and purchase our products pursuant to cancelable and re-schedulable purchase orders containing our standard warranty provisions for defects in materials, workmanship and product performance. At our option, defective products may be returned for their purchase price or for replacement. To date, our international stocking sales representatives have returned a small number of defective products to us. Our international stocking sales representatives may also act as a sales representative and receive commissions on sales of our products. Our international stocking sales representatives include Bussan Microelectronics Corporation/Mitsui Comtek Corporation and Lestina International Limited. Sales through our international stocking sales representatives accounted for 6%, 10%, and 11% of total revenue in 2009, 2008, and 2007, respectively. While we have purchase agreements with our international stocking sales representatives, they do not have long-term contracts with any of our OEM customers that use our products and services.
 
 
    We also use distributors to provide valuable assistance to end-users in delivery of our products and related services. While we have purchase agreements with our distributors, they do not commit the distributors to purchase specific quantities of our products. We believe that distributors do not have long-term contracts with any of their OEM or contract manufacture customers. In accordance with standard market practice, our distributor agreements limit the distributor’s ability to return product up to a portion of purchases in the preceding quarter and limit price protection for inventory on-hand if it subsequently lowers prices on our products.  We recognize sales through distributors at the time of shipment to end customers.
 
    On November 7, 2005, we entered into master purchase agreements with each of Cisco Systems, Inc. and Cisco Systems International B.V. Cisco, who together with their contract manufacturers, are our largest customers. Pursuant to these agreements, we agreed to supply to Cisco (including its subsidiaries and contract manufacturers) certain of our products for incorporation into Cisco’s products. These agreements set forth the general business terms and conditions applicable to our sales to Cisco, including,
  
 
 
our obligation to accept all purchase orders from Cisco, unless we are unable to meet Cisco’s schedule;
 
 
 
our obligation to ensure that we have the capacity to increase or decrease production of our knowledge-based processors based upon Cisco’s demand forecasts;
 
 
 
our obligation to use our best efforts to meet Cisco’s stated cost reduction targets and to provide to Cisco all price decreases that we achieve;
 
 
 
“most favored nation” pricing and related audit rights in favor of Cisco, providing that, in any quarter, the prices paid by Cisco for our products (including progeny and replacements), will be the lowest prices paid for those products by any of our other customers who purchase as much or less than Cisco;
 
 
 
our obligation to provide Cisco, in the event of any short supply of products or components, an allocation that is no less favorable than that provided to our other customers purchasing similar quantities of similar products;
 
 
 
Cisco’s cancellation rights for standard and custom products;
 
 
 
Cisco’s approval and related rights with respect to any proposed changes to, or discontinuation of, our products purchased by Cisco;

 
12
 

 
 
Cisco’s right to purchase our knowledge-based processors directly from our manufacturers under the following circumstances;

   
 
product discontinuation;

   
 
bankruptcy, insolvency and similar situations;
 
   
 
transfer of at least 50% of our voting control to a Cisco competitor that generates less than 50% of its annual sales from integrated circuit products;
 
 
 
in all cases, subject, among other things, to Cisco’s continuing obligation to pay us for the product and our obligation to disclose the costs charged to us by our manufacturers;
 
 
 
perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, worldwide license grant to Cisco to use binary code versions of our software in connection with Cisco’s manufacture, sale, license, loan or distribution of its products; and
 
 
 
Cisco’s extended product warranties, generally for three years and, in the case of epidemic failures, for five years and our indemnification obligation for epidemic failures which will not exceed the greater of (on a per claim basis) 25% of all amounts paid to us by Cisco during the preceding 12 months (approximately $15.4 million at December 31, 2009) or $9.0 million, plus replacement costs. The initial term of these agreements was three years and they were automatically renewed through November 2010.
 
    In 2007, at Cisco’s request we transitioned into a just-in-time inventory model covering substantially all of our product shipments to Cisco and its contract manufacturers. In conjunction with this transition, we entered into a purchase agreement with Wintec Industries who became the primary purchaser of our products on a consignment basis for resale to Cisco and Cisco’s contract manufacturers. We generally have provided to Wintec the same terms and conditions that we provide to Cisco under the master purchase agreement between us and Cisco, including: our obligations to accept all purchase orders from Wintec (unless we are unable to meet Wintec’s schedule), ensure that we have the capacity to increase or decrease production of our products based upon Wintec’s demand forecasts, use our best efforts to meet Wintec’s stated cost reduction targets and provide to Wintec all price decreases that we achieve, cancellation rights for standard and custom products, and extended product warranties. We also have extended to Wintec a credit limit sufficient to cover our anticipated annual business with Cisco and Cisco’s contract manufacturers. Sales through Wintec accounted for 33% and 35% of total revenue in 2009 and 2008, respectively.
 
    In 2009, 2008 and 2007, Cisco, including its contract manufacturers, accounted for 35%, 38%, and 50% of our total revenue, respectively. Cisco accounted for a smaller portion of our total sales in 2009 as we increased our customer diversification. Alcatel-Lucent was a 13% customer and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. became a 10% customer, by revenue, in 2009. We intend to continue to further diversify our customer account base in 2010.

 
13
 
 
Sales, Marketing and Distribution
 
    Our sales and marketing strategy is to achieve design wins with leaders and emerging participants in the networking, communications infrastructure, storage and security systems market and to maintain these design wins primarily through leading-edge products and superior customer service. We focus our marketing and sales efforts at a high organizational level of our potential customers to access key decision makers. In addition, as many targeted OEMs design custom integrated circuits to interface to our products, we believe that applications support at the early stages of design is critical to reducing time-to-market and minimizing costly redesigns for our customers.
 
    Our product sales cycles can take over 24 months to complete, requiring a significant investment in time, resources and engineering before realization of income from product sales, if at all. Such long sales cycles mean that OEM customers’ vendor selections, once made, are normally difficult to change. As a result, a design loss to the competition can negatively impact our financial results for several years. Similarly, design wins can result in an extended period of revenue opportunities with that customer.
 
    We market and sell our products through our direct sales force, distributors, and through independent sales representatives throughout the world. Our direct sales force is dedicated to enhancing relationships with our customers. We supplement our direct sales force with independent sales representatives, who have been selected based on their understanding of our targeted customers’ systems market and their level of penetration at our target OEM customers. We also use application engineers to provide technical support and design assistance to existing and potential customers.
 
    Our marketing group is responsible for market and competitive analyses and defining our product roadmaps and specifications to take advantage of market opportunities. This group works closely with our research and development group to align development programs and product launches with our OEM customers’ schedules. Additionally, this group develops and maintains marketing materials, training programs and our web site to convey our benefits to our targeted OEMs.
 
    We operate in one business segment and primarily sell our products directly to customers in the United States, Asia and Europe. Sales for the geographic regions reported below are based upon the bill-to customer headquarter locations. Following is a summary of the geographic information related to revenues for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008, and 2007 (in thousands):
 
   
Year Ended December 31,
 
   
2009
   
2008
   
2007
 
Revenue:
     
United States
  $ 43,920     $ 46,287     $ 48,221  
Malaysia
    54,379       42,435       34,017  
China
    47,620       30,378       14,126  
Other
    28,770       20,827       12,699  
Total
  $ 174,689     $ 139,927     $ 109,063  
 
Research and Development
 
    We devote substantial resources to the development of new products, improvement of existing products and support of the emerging requirements of our targeted customers. We have assembled a team of product designers possessing extensive experience in system architecture, analog and digital circuit design, hardware reference board design, software architecture and driver design and advanced fabrication process technologies. Our engineering design teams are located in Mountain View and Cupertino, California, Austin, Texas, Beijing, China and Bangalore and Mumbai, India.  As of December 31, 2009, we had approximately 324 full-time employees engaged in research and development worldwide. Our research and development expenses were $73.6 million, $51.6 million, and $45.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008, and 2007, respectively.
 
    We use a number of standard design tools in the design, manufacture and verification of our products. Due to the highly complex design requirements of our products, we typically supplement these standard tools with our own tools to create a proprietary design method that allows us to optimize the performance of our products at the circuit-level.

 
14
 


Manufacturing and Materials
 
    We design and develop all of our products and electronically transfer our proprietary designs to third party wafer foundries to manufacture our products. Wafers processed by these foundries are shipped to our subcontractors, where they are assembled into finished products and electronically tested before delivery to our customers. We believe that this manufacturing model significantly reduces our capital requirements and allows us to focus our resources on the design, development and marketing of our products.
 
    Our principal wafer foundry is TSMC in Taiwan. We are actively involved with product development on next-generation processes, and are designing products on TSMC’s most advanced logic processes. The latest generation of our products employs up to eight layers of copper interconnect and 300 millimeter wafer sizes.
 
    Our products are designed to use industry standard packages and be tested using widely available automatic test equipment. We develop and control product test programs used by our subcontractors based on our product specifications. We currently rely on Amkor Technology, Inc. in Korea, Philippines, and Taiwan, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. in Korea and Taiwan, King Yuan Electronics Co., Ltd. in Taiwan, Signetics Corporation in Korea, and ISE Labs, Inc. in the U.S. to assemble and test our products. We also rely on JSI Shipping to provide supply chain management services. We also have an office in Taiwan that employs local personnel to work directly with our Asian wafer manufacturers and assembly and test houses to facilitate manufacturing operations.
 
    We have designed and implemented an ISO9001-certified quality management system that provides the framework for continual improvement of our products, processes and customer service. We apply well-established design rules and practices for CMOS devices through standard design, layout and test processes. We also rely on in-depth simulation studies, testing and practical application testing to validate and verify our products. We emphasize a strong supplier quality management practice in which our manufacturing suppliers are pre-qualified by our operations and quality teams. To ensure consistent product quality, reliability and yield, we closely monitor the production cycle by reviewing electrical, parametric and manufacturing process data from each of our wafer foundries and assembly subcontractors.
 
    We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with any of our significant third party manufacturing service providers. We generally place purchase orders with these providers according to terms and conditions of sales which specify price and 30-day payment terms and which limit the providers’ liability.

 Competition
 
    The markets for our products are highly competitive. We believe that the principal bases of competition are:
 
 
 
processing speed;
 
 
 
power dissipation;
 
 
 
capacity of the knowledge or signature database that can be processed;
 
 
 
advanced product features allowing OEM and system customer product differentiation;
 
 
 
price;
 
 
 
product availability and reliability;
 
 
 
customer support and responsiveness;
 
 
 
timeliness of new product introductions; and
 
 
 
credibility in designing and manufacturing products.

 
15
 
 
    We believe that we compete favorably on each of the bases identified above. However, some of our competitors have greater financial resources and a longer track record as a semiconductor supplier than we do. We anticipate that the market for our products will be subject to rapid technological change. As we enter new markets and pursue additional applications for our products, we expect to face competition from a larger number of competitors. Within our Layer 2-4 knowledge-based processor, NetLite and network search engine markets, we primarily compete with Renesas Technology, Corp. In the Layer 7 market, we primarily compete with certain divisions of LSI Corporation. In the 10-Gigabit Ethernet physical layer market, we primarily compete with certain divisions of Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, Broadcom Corporation, Marvell Technology Group Ltd., Cortina Systems, Inc. and Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation. In the multi-core processor market, we primarily compete with Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Broadcom Corporation, Cavium Networks, Inc., Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Intel Corporation, Marvell Technology Group Ltd., and PMC-Sierra, Inc. We expect to face competition in the future from our current competitors, other manufacturers and designers of semiconductors, including large integrated device manufacturers, and innovative start-up semiconductor design companies.
 
Intellectual Property
 
    Our success and future growth will depend, in part, on our ability to protect our intellectual property. We rely primarily on patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws to protect our intellectual property. We also attempt to protect our trade secrets and other proprietary information through agreements with our customers, suppliers, employees and consultants and through security protection of our computer network and physical premises. However, these measures may not provide meaningful protection for our intellectual property. While our patents and other intellectual property rights are important, we believe that our technical expertise and ability to introduce new products in a timely manner will also be important factors in maintaining our competitive position.
 
    As of January 31, 2010, we held 422 issued U.S. patents and 15 issued foreign patents with expiration dates ranging from 2011 to 2027.  We also have numerous patent applications pending in the U.S and abroad. We may not receive any additional patents as a result of these applications or future applications. Nonetheless, we continue to pursue the filing of additional patent applications. Any rights granted under any of our existing or future patents may not provide meaningful protection or any commercial advantage to us.
 
    Many participants in the semiconductor industry have a significant number of patents and have frequently demonstrated a willingness to commence litigation based on allegations of patent and other intellectual property infringement. From time to time, we have received, and expect to continue to receive, notices of claims of infringement or misappropriation of other parties’ proprietary rights. In the event any such claims result in legal actions, we cannot assure you that we will prevail in these actions, or that other actions alleging infringement by us of third party intellectual property rights, misappropriation or misuse by us of third party trade secrets, or invalidity or unenforceability of our patents will not be asserted against us or that any assertions of infringement, misappropriation, misuse, invalidity or unenforceability will not materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
 
    We intend to protect our rights vigorously, but there can be no assurance that our efforts will be successful. Thus, despite our precautions, a third party may copy or otherwise obtain and use our products, services or technology without authorization, develop similar technology independently or design around our patents. In addition, effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may be unavailable or limited in certain foreign countries. Moreover, we often incorporate the intellectual property of third parties into our designs, which is subject to certain obligations with respect to the non-use and non-disclosure of such intellectual property. We cannot assure you that the steps we have taken to prevent infringement, misappropriation or misuse of our intellectual property or the intellectual property of third parties will be successful. Furthermore, enforcement of our intellectual property rights may divert the efforts and attention of our management team and may be costly to us.
 
    In addition to our own intellectual property, we also rely on third-party technologies for the development of our products. We license certain technology from MIPS Technologies, Inc., pursuant to a license agreement entered into in July 2003 wherein RMI was granted a non-exclusive, worldwide license to MIPS Technologies’ micro-processor core technology to develop, implement and use in its products. The term of the agreement will expire in July 2017. The agreement permits us to continue selling in perpetuity products developed during the term of the agreement containing the licensed technology.

 
16
 
 
Employees
 
    As of December 31, 2009, we had 550 full-time employees worldwide, including 324 in research and development, 69 in operations, 114 in sales and marketing and 48 in general and administrative. None of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. We believe our relations with our employees are good.

Available Information
 
    We organized our business in 1995 as a California limited liability company and incorporated in Delaware in 2000.  Our Web site address is www.netlogicmicro.com. The information in our Web site is not incorporated by reference into this report. Through a link on the Investor Relations section of our Web site, we make available our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as soon as reasonably practicable after they are filed with, or furnished to, the Securities and Exchange Commission.
 
 
ITEM 1A.
RISK FACTORS.

If any of the following risks actually occur, our business, results of operations and financial condition could suffer significantly.
 
We have grown rapidly, and a failure to manage any continued growth could reduce our potential revenue and could negatively impact our future operating results.
 
    In 2009, we completed two major acquisitions. In order to successfully implement our overall growth strategies, we will need to carefully and efficiently manage our planned expansion. Among other things, this will require us to continue to:

 
 
improve our products and technology and develop new technologies;
 
 
 
manage new distribution channels;
 
 
 
manage an increasing number of complex relationships with our customers, wafer foundries and other third parties;
 
 
 
monitor and improve our operating systems, procedures and financial controls on a timely basis;
 
 
 
retain existing, and hire additional, key management and technical personnel;
 
 
 
expand, train and manage our workforce and, in particular, our research and development, sales, marketing and support organizations.
 
 
 
retain and expand the customer base for the IDT NSE Business and the RMI product offerings;
 
 
 
integrate and improve the IDT and RMI manufacturing operations; and
 
 
 
integrate and manage the foreign entities acquired in the RMI acquisition.
 
    We may not be able to adequately manage our growth or meet the foregoing objectives. A failure to do so could jeopardize our future revenue and cause our stock price to decline. Also, our ability to execute our business plan and grow our business will be heavily dependent on our management team’s ability to work effectively together.
 
 
Our operating cash needs have increased substantially as a result of our acquisition of RMI in October 2009 and other recent acquisitions, and if we are unable to generate adequate cash flow from our operations to meet these needs, our liquidity may be impaired.
 
    Although in recent years we have generated sufficient net cash from operations to meet our capital requirements, we have become substantially larger with greater operating cash needs as a result of the RMI and other recent acquisitions. We may be required to pay up to $15.9 million cash to the former holders of RMI capital stock as earn-out consideration based upon achieving specified percentages of revenue targets for either the 12-month period from October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010, or the 12-month period from November 1, 2009 through October 31, 2010, whichever period results in the higher percentage of the revenue target. The earn-out consideration, if any, net of applicable indemnity claims, will be paid on or before December 31, 2010.
 
    Our future cash needs will depend on many factors, including the amount of revenue we generate, the timing and extent of spending to support product development efforts, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, the timing of introductions of new products, the costs to ensure access to adequate manufacturing capacity, and the continuing market acceptance of our products, and any future business acquisitions that we might undertake. These factors, in turn, depend in large part on the success of our efforts to integrate the RMI and IDT NSE businesses we acquired with our own business as it existed prior to the acquisitions. In the event that we do not achieve the synergies and realize other benefits we anticipated achieving from these acquisitions, our future cash needs may be greater than we currently anticipate. We have also incurred and may continue to incur significant transaction expenses in connection with these acquisitions and other transactions.
 
    We may seek additional funding through public or private equity or debt financing, and we have a shelf registration statement that would allow us to sell up to an additional amount of approximately $120 million of our securities from time to time during the next three years. However, additional funding could be constrained by the terms and covenants under our senior secured credit facility and may not be available on terms acceptable to us or at all. We also might decide to raise additional capital at such times and upon such terms as management considers favorable and in our interests, including, but not limited to, from the sale of our debt and/or equity securities under our shelf registration statement, but we cannot be certain that we will be able to complete offerings of our securities at such times and on such terms as we may consider desirable for us.  Any such financings may be upon terms that are potentially dilutive to existing stockholders.
 
 
We derive most of our revenue from sales of our knowledge-based processors, and, if the demand for these products and other products does not grow, we may not achieve our growth and strategic objectives.
 
    Our knowledge-based processors are used primarily in networking systems, including routers, switches, network access equipment and networked storage devices. Although our recent acquisition of RMI has expanded our product portfolio, we have historically derived a substantial portion of our total revenue from sales of our knowledge-based processors and expect to continue to derive a significant portion of our total revenues from these products for the foreseeable future. We believe our future business and financial success depends on continued market acceptance and increasing sales of our knowledge-based processors. In order to meet our growth and strategic objectives, networking and communications infrastructure OEMs must continue to incorporate, and increase the incorporation of, our products into their systems as their preferred means of enabling network-aware processing of IP packets, and the demand for their systems must grow as well. We cannot provide assurance that sales of our knowledge-based processors will increase substantially in the future or that the demand for our customers’ systems will increase as well. Our future revenues from these products may not increase in accordance with our growth and strategic objectives if the OEM customers modify their current product designs or select products sold by our competitors instead. Thus, the future success of this part of our business depends in large part on factors outside our control, and sales of our knowledge-based processors and other products may not meet our revenue growth and strategic objectives. Additionally, due to the high concentration of our sales with a small number of OEMs, we cannot guarantee that the demand for the systems offered by these customers will increase or that our sales will increase outside this core customer base, and, accordingly, prior quarterly or annual results may not be an indication of our future revenue growth or financial results.
 
Because we rely on a small number of customers for a significant portion of our total revenue, the loss of, or a significant reduction in, orders for our products from these customers would negatively affect our total revenue and business.
 
    To date, we have been dependent upon orders for sales our products to a limited number of customers, and, in particular, Cisco, for most of our total revenue. During the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007, Cisco and its contract manufacturers accounted for 35%, 38% and 50% of our total revenue, respectively. In addition, because the market segments served by us and RMI prior to the acquisition were complementary and some of our significant customer bases overlapped, the combination of our companies has not reduced our dependency on sales to some of our significant customers that we share. We expect that our future financial performance will continue to depend in large part upon our relationship with Cisco and several other large OEMs.
 
    We cannot assure you that existing or potential customers will not develop their own solutions, purchase competitive products or acquire companies that use alternative methods in their systems. We do not have long-term purchase commitments from any of our OEM customers or their contract manufacturers. Although we entered into master purchase agreements with certain significant customers including Cisco, one of Cisco’s foreign affiliates and a Cisco purchasing agent, these agreements do not include any long-term purchase commitments. Cisco and our other customers do business with us currently only on the basis of short-term purchase orders (subject, in the case of Cisco, to the terms of the master purchase agreements), which often are cancelable prior to shipment. The loss of orders for our products from Cisco or other major users of our products would have a significant negative impact on our business.
 
We face additional risks to our business success and financial condition because of our dependence on a small number of customers for sales of our products.
 
    Our dependence on a small number of customers, especially Cisco and its contract manufacturers, for most of our revenue in the foreseeable future creates additional risks for our business, including the following:

 
 
we may face increased pressure to reduce the average selling prices of our products;
 
 
 
we may find it difficult to pass through increases in our manufacturing and other direct costs;
 
 
 
the reputation of our products in the marketplace may be affected adversely if Cisco or other OEMs that represent a significant percentage of our sales of products reduce or cease their use of our products; and
 
 
 
we may face problems in collecting a substantial portion of our accounts receivable if any of these companies faces financial difficulties or dispute payments.
 
 
While we achieved profitability in recent years, we had a net loss in 2009 and a history of net losses prior to 2005. We may incur significant net losses in the future and may not be able to sustain profitability.
 
    We reported a net loss of $47.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2009.  We reported net income of $3.6 million and $2.6 million during the years ended 2008 and 2007, and we have reported net losses in years prior to fiscal 2005. At December 31, 2009, we had an accumulated deficit of approximately $123.1 million. To regain profitability, we will have to continue to generate greater total revenue and control costs and expenses. We cannot assure you that we will be able to generate greater total revenue, or limit our costs and expenses, sufficiently to sustain profitability on a quarterly or annual basis. Moreover, if we continue to make acquisitions and other transactions that generate substantial expenses for acquired intangible assets and similar items as well acquisition costs, we may not become profitable in the near term even though we otherwise meet our growth and operting objectives.  For example, for the year ended December 31, 2009 we recorded $62.4 million of non-cash operating expenses. See “Cash Flows during the Year ended December 31, 2009” in Item 7, Management ‘s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Conditions and Results of Operations, and Note 2, “Business Combinations and Asset Purchase” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statement.
 
Because we sell our products on a purchase order basis and rely on estimated forecasts of our customers’ needs, inaccurate forecasts could adversely affect our business.
 
    We sell our products pursuant to individual purchase orders (subject, in the case of Cisco and certain key customers, to the terms of a master purchase agreement), and not pursuant to long-term purchase commitments. Therefore, we rely on estimated demand forecasts, based upon input from our customers, to determine how much product to manufacture. Because our sales are based on purchase orders, our customers may cancel, delay or otherwise modify their purchase commitments with little or no consequence to them and with little or no notice to us. For these reasons, we generally have limited visibility regarding our customers’ product needs. We cannot provide assurance as to the quantities or timing required by our customers for our products. We cannot assure you that we will not experience subsequent substantial warranty claims or that warranty claims will not result in cancellation of existing orders or reluctance of customers to place future orders. In addition, the product design cycle for networking OEMs is lengthy, and it may be difficult for us to accurately anticipate when they will commence commercial shipments of products that include our knowledge-based processors. Whether in response to changes affecting the industry or a customer’s specific business pressures, any cancellation, delay or other modification in our customers’ orders could significantly reduce our revenue, cause our operating results to fluctuate from period to period and make it more difficult for us to predict our revenue. In the event of a cancellation or reduction of an order, we may not have enough time to reduce operating expenses to minimize the effect of the lost revenue on our business, and we may purchase too much inventory and spend more capital than expected.
 
    Additionally, if we overestimate customer demand for our products, we may purchase products from manufacturers that we may not be able to sell. Conversely, if we underestimate customer demand or if sufficient manufacturing capacity were unavailable, we would forego revenue opportunities and could lose market share in the markets served by our products. In addition, our inability to meet customer requirements for our products could lead to delays in product shipments, force customers to identify alternative sources and otherwise adversely affect our ongoing relationships with our customers.
 
 
We are dependent on contract manufacturers for a significant portion of our revenue.
 
    Many of our OEM customers, including Cisco, use third party contract manufacturers to manufacture their systems. These contract manufacturers represented 43%, 41% and 65% of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively. Contract manufacturers purchase our products directly from us on behalf of OEMs. Although we work with our OEM customers in the design and development phases of their systems, these OEM customers are gradually giving contract manufacturers more authority in product purchasing decisions. As a result, we depend on a concentrated group of contract manufacturers for a substantial portion of our revenue. If we cannot compete effectively for the business of these contract manufacturers or if any of the contract manufacturers, which work with our OEM customers, experience financial or other difficulties in their businesses, our revenue and our business could be adversely affected. In particular, if one of our OEM customer’s contract manufacturers becomes subject to bankruptcy proceedings, neither we nor our OEM customer may be able to obtain any of our products held by the contract manufacturer. In addition, we may not be able to recover any payments owed to us by the contract manufacturer for products already delivered or recover the products held in the contract manufacturer’s inventory when the bankruptcy proceeding is initiated. If we are unable to deliver our products to our OEM customers in a timely manner, our business would be adversely affected.

The average selling prices of our products may decline, which could reduce our revenue and gross margin.
 
    In our experience the average selling prices of our products and the RMI products sold by RMI have declined over the course of their commercial lives, principally due to the supply of competing products, reduction in demand from customers, pressure from customers to reduce prices and product cycle changes; we expect these trends to continue. In addition, under our master purchase agreements with Cisco, we agreed to provide to Cisco all price decreases that we achieve, and granted to Cisco the right (under limited circumstances) to purchase our products directly from our manufacturers (subject to payments to us, net of specified costs). Declining average selling prices can adversely affect our future operating results. To maintain acceptable operating results, we will need to develop and introduce new products and product enhancements on a timely basis and continue to reduce our costs. If we are unable to offset any reductions in our average selling prices by increasing our sales volumes and achieving corresponding production cost reductions, or if we fail to develop and introduce new products and enhancements on a timely basis, our revenue and operating results will suffer.

We rely on third parties for the manufacture of our products, and a significant increase in wafer pricing or our failure to secure sufficient capacity could limit our growth and adversely affect our operating results.
 
    As a fabless semiconductor company, we rely on third-party wafer foundries to manufacture our products. We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with any of the wafer foundries, including TSMC, and United Microelectronics Corporation, or UMC. Neither TSMC nor UMC is obligated to perform services or supply products to us for any specific period, in any specific quantities or at any specific price, except as may be provided in a particular purchase order. As a result, there are numerous risks associated with our reliance on these wafer foundries, including the possibilities that TSMC or UMC may give higher priority to their other customers or that our relationships with either wafer foundry may deteriorate. We cannot assure you that TSMC and UMC will continue to provide us with our products at acceptable yields or in sufficient quantities, for reasonable costs and on a timely basis to meet our customers’ needs. A failure to ensure the timely fabrication of our products could cause us to lose customers and could have a material adverse effect on our operating results.
 
    If either wafer foundry, and in particular TSMC, ceases to provide us with required production capacity with respect to our products, we cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain manufacturing capacity from other wafer foundries on commercially reasonable terms or that these arrangements, if established, will result in the successful manufacturing of our products. These arrangements might require us to share our technology and might be subject to unilateral termination by the wafer foundries. Even if such capacity is available from another manufacturer, we would need to convert the production of our integrated circuits to a new fabrication process and qualify the other manufacturer, which process could take nine months or longer. Furthermore, we may not be able to identify or qualify manufacturing sources that would be able to produce wafers with acceptable manufacturing yields. 
 
    Additionally, some of the network search engine products we acquired from IDT are manufactured for us by IDT at their wafer fabrication facilities.  While IDT is contratually obligated to manufacture for us certain quantities of these products, we canno assure you that IDT will continue to honor these commitments, that IDT's fabrication facility will remain in business or that IDT will be able to always meet our production demands which may adversly impact our operating results.
 
 
We also rely on third parties for other products and services, including the assembly, testing and packing of our products, and engineering services, and any failure by third parties to provide the tools and services we require could limit our growth and adversely affect our future operating results.
 
    Our products are assembled and tested by third-party vendors that require the use of high performance assembly and test equipment. In addition, in connection with the design of our products, we use software tools, which we obtain from third party software vendors, for simulation, layout and other design purposes. Our reliance on independent assembly, testing, software and other vendors involves a number of risks, including reduced control over delivery schedules, quality assurance and costs. We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with any of these third party vendors. As a result, most of these third party vendors are not obligated to provide products or perform services to us for any specific period, in any specific quantities or at any specific price, except as may be provided in a particular purchase order. The inability of these third party vendors to deliver high performance products or services of acceptable quality and in a timely manner, could lengthen our design cycle, result in the loss of our customers and reduce our revenue.
 
    We also rely on third party component suppliers to provide custom designed integrated circuit packages for our products. In some instances, these package designs are provided by a single supplier. Our reliance on these suppliers involves a number of risks, including reduced control over delivery schedules, quality assurance and costs. We currently do not have long-term supply contracts with any of these package vendors. As a result, most of these third party vendors are not obligated to provide products or perform services to us for any specific period, in any specific quantities or at any specific price, except as may be provided in a particular purchase order. The inability of these third party vendors to deliver packages of acceptable quality and in a timely manner, particularly the sole source vendors, could adversely affect our delivery commitments and adversely affect our operating results or cause them to fluctuate more than anticipated. Additionally, these packages may require specialized or high-performance component parts that may not be available in quantities or in time frames that meet our requirements or the anticipated requirement of our customers.
 
    In connection with the design of our products, we have and may license third party intellectual property, and use third party engineering services. Our reliance on these third party intellectual property and engineering services providers involves a number of risks, including reduced control over and quality of the intellectual property and service deliverables, quality and costs. The inability of these third party providers to deliver high performance products or services of acceptable quality and in a timely manner, could lengthen our design cycle, result in the loss of our customers and reduce our revenue.

 Our costs may increase substantially if the wafer foundries, assembly and test vendors that supply and test our products do not achieve satisfactory product yields, reliability or quality.
 
    The wafer fabrication process is an extremely complicated process where the slightest changes in the design, specifications or materials can result in material decreases in manufacturing yields or even the suspension of production. From time to time, we and our wafer foundries have experienced, and are likely to continue to experience manufacturing defects and reduced manufacturing yields related to errors or problems in our wafer foundries’ manufacturing processes or the interrelationship of their processes with our designs. In some cases, our wafer foundries may not be able to detect these defects early in the fabrication process or determine the cause of such defects in a timely manner, which may affect the quality or reliability of our products. We may incur substantial research and development expense for prototype or development stage products as we qualify the products for production.
 
    Generally, in pricing our products, we assume that manufacturing, assembly and test yields will continue to increase, even as the complexity of our products increases. Once our products are initially qualified with our wafer foundries, minimum acceptable yields are established. We are responsible for the costs of the wafers if the actual yield is above the minimum. If actual yields are below the minimum, we are not required to purchase the wafers. The minimum acceptable yields for our new products are generally lower at first and increase as we achieve full production. Whether as a result of a design defect or manufacturing, assembly or test error, unacceptably low product yields or other product manufacturing, assembly or test problems could substantially increase the overall production time and costs and adversely impact our operating results on sales of our products. Product yield losses will increase our costs and reduce our gross margin. In addition to significantly harming our operating results and cash flow, poor yields may delay shipment of our products and harm our relationships with existing and potential customers.
 

To be successful we must continue to develop and have manufactured for us, innovative products to meet the evolving requirements of networking OEMs.
 
    To remain competitive, we devote substantial resources to research and development, both to improve our existing technology and to develop new technology. We also seek to improve the manufacturing processes for our products, including the use of smaller process geometries, which we believe is important for our products to serve our OEM customers’ requirements for enhanced processing. Our failure to migrate our products to processes at smaller process geometries could substantially reduce the future competitiveness of our products. In addition, from time to time, we may have to redesign some of our products or modify the manufacturing process for them. We cannot give you any assurance that we will be able to improve our existing technology or develop and integrate new technology into our products. Even if we design better products, we may encounter problems during the manufacturing or assembly process, including reduced manufacturing yields, production delays and increased expenses, all of which could adversely affect our business and results of operations.
 
    In addition, given the highly complex nature of these products, even the slightest change or adjustment to our integrated circuit designs could require substantial resources to implement them. We may not be able to make these changes or adjustments to our products or correct any errors or defects arising from their implementation. Failure to make these changes or adjustments or correct these errors or defects during the product development stages, or any resulting delays, could severely harm our existing and potential customer relationships and could likely increase our development costs, adversely affecting our operating results. If these changes, adjustments, errors or defects are not identified or requested until after commercial production has begun or after products have been delivered to customers, we may be required to re-test existing inventory, replace products already shipped or re-design the products, all of which would likely result in significant time delays and additional costs and expenses.
 
We have sustained substantial losses from low production yields in the past and may incur such losses in the future.
 
    Designing and manufacturing integrated circuits is a difficult, complex and costly process. Once research and development has been completed and the foundry begins to produce commercial volumes of the new integrated circuit, products still may contain errors or defects that could adversely affect product quality and reliability. We have experienced low yields and have incurred substantial research and development expenses in the design and initial production phases of all of our products, and similar problems have historically been experienced in the production of the RMI products by RMI. We cannot assure you that we will not experience low yields, substantial research and development expenses, product quality, reliability or design problems, or other material problems with our products that we have shipped or may ship in the future.

If we fail to retain key personnel and hire additional personnel, our business and growth could be negatively affected.
 
    Our business has been dependent to a significant degree upon the services of a small number of executive officers and technical employees. We generally do not have non-competition agreements or term employment agreements with any of our executive officers, whom we generally employ at will. We do not maintain key-man life insurance on the lives of any of our key personnel. The loss of any of these individuals could negatively impact our technology development efforts and our ability to service our existing customers and obtain new customers.
 
    Our future growth will also depend, in part, upon our ability to recruit and retain other qualified managers, engineers and sales and marketing personnel. There is intense competition for these individuals in our industry, and we cannot assure you that we will be successful in recruiting and retaining these individuals. If we are unable to recruit and retain these individuals, our technology development and sales and marketing efforts could be negatively impacted.
 
 
If we fail to maintain competitive equity compensation packages for our employees, or if our stock price declines materially for a protracted period of time, we might have difficulty retaining our employees and our business may be harmed.
 
    In today’s competitive technology industry, employment decisions of highly skilled personnel are influenced by equity compensation packages, which offer incentives above traditional compensation only where there is a consistent, long-term upward trend over time of a company’s stock price. If our stock price declines due to market conditions, investors’ perceptions of the technology industry or managerial or performance problems we have, our equity compensation incentives, especially stock options may lose value to key employees, and we may lose these employees or be forced to grant additional equity compensation incentives to retain them. This in turn could result in:
 
 
 
immediate and substantial dilution to investors resulting from the grant of additional equity awards necessary to retain employees; and
 
 
 
potential compensation charges against the company, which could negatively impact our operating results.
 
    Additionally, if we fail to provide an adequate amount of equity consideration to new and existing employees we may be unable to compete for new talent and retain our existing talent. The number of shares available for grant under our 2004 Equity Incentive Plan (the “Plan”) may not be adequate enough to continue to enable us to competitively compensate our employees, and if we are unable to obtain from our stockholders an increase in the number of shares authorized under the Plan either in fiscal year 2010 or fiscal year 2011, we may not be able to retain our employees which could significantly impact our operating results.

A failure to successfully address the potential difficulties associated with international business could reduce our growth, increase our operating costs and negatively impact our business.
 
    We conduct a significant amount of our business with companies that operate primarily outside of the United States, and intend to increase sales to companies operating outside of the United States. For example, our customers based outside the United States accounted for 75%, 67% and 56% of our total revenue during the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively. Not only are many of our customers located abroad, but our two wafer foundries are based in Taiwan, and we outsource the assembly and some of the testing of our products to companies based in Taiwan and Hong Kong. We face a variety of challenges in doing business internationally, including:
 
 
 
foreign currency exchange fluctuations;
 
 
 
compliance with local laws and regulations that we not be familiar with;
 
 
 
unanticipated changes in local regulations;
 
 
 
potentially adverse tax consequences, such as withholding taxes;
 
 
 
timing and availability of export and import licenses;
 
 
 
political and economic instability;
 
 
 
reduced or limited protection of our intellectual property;
 
 
 
protectionist laws and business practices that favor local competition; and
 
 
 
additional financial risks, such as potentially longer and more difficult collection periods.
 
    Because we anticipate that we will continue to rely heavily on foreign based customers for our future growth, the occurrence of any of the circumstances identified above could significantly increase our operating costs, delay the timing of our revenue and harm our business and financial condition.
 

We must design our products to meet the needs of our OEM customers and convince them to use our products, or our revenue will be adversely affected.
 
    In general, our OEM customers design our products into their equipment during the early stages of their development after an in-depth technical evaluation of both our and our competitors’ products. These design wins are critical to the success of our business. In competing for design wins, if a competitor’s product is already designed into the product offering of a potential customer, it becomes very difficult for us to sell our products to that customer. Changing suppliers involves additional cost, time, effort and risk for the customer. In addition, our products must comply with the continually evolving specifications of our OEMs. Our ability to compete in the future will depend, in large part, on our ability to comply with these specifications. As a result, we expect to invest significant time and effort and to incur significant expense to design our products to ensure compliance with relevant specifications. Even if an OEM designs our products into its systems, we cannot assure you that its systems will be commercially successful or that we will receive significant revenue from sales our products for those systems.

Factors that negatively affect the businesses of our targeted OEMs that use or could use our products could negatively impact our total revenue.
 
    The timing and amount of our revenue depend on the ability of our targeted OEMs who use our products to market, produce and ship systems incorporating our technology. Factors that negatively affect a significant customer or group of customers could negatively affect our results of operations and financial condition. Many issues beyond our control influence the success of our targeted OEMs that use our products, including, for example, the highly competitive environment in which they operate, the strength of the markets for their products, their engineering capabilities, their ability or inability to obtain other components from other suppliers, the compatibility of any of their other components with our products, the impact of a worldwide recession on their capital spending and sales of their equipment, and their financial and other resources. Likewise, we have no control over their product development or pricing strategies, which directly affect sales of their products and, in turn, our revenue. A decline in sales of our OEM customers’ systems that use our products would reduce our revenue. In addition, seasonal and other fluctuations in demand for their products could cause our operating results to fluctuate, which could cause our stock price to fall.
 
We have a lengthy sales cycle, which may result in significant expenses that do not generate significant revenue or delayed revenue generation from our selling efforts and limits our ability to forecast our revenue.
 
    We expect that our product sales cycle, which results in our products being designed into our customers’ products, could take over 24 months. It can take an additional nine months to reach volume production of these products. A number of factors can contribute to the length of the sales cycle, including technical evaluations of our products by our OEMs, the design process required to integrate our products into our OEM customers’ products and the timing of our OEMs’ new product announcements. In anticipation of product orders, we may incur substantial costs before the sales cycle is complete and before we receive any customer payments. As a result, in the event that a sale is not completed or is cancelled or delayed, we may have incurred substantial expenses, making it more difficult for us to become profitable or otherwise negatively impacting our financial results. Furthermore, because of our lengthy sales cycle, our receipt of revenue from our selling efforts may be substantially delayed, our ability to forecast our future revenue may be more limited and our revenue may fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter.

Our operating results could be adversely affected if we have to satisfy product warranty or liability claims.
 
    If our products are defective or malfunction, we could be subject to product warranty or product liability claims that could have significant related warranty charges or warranty reserves in our financial statements. Further, we may spend significant resources investigating potential product design, quality and reliability claims, which could result in additional charges in our financial statements until such claims are resolved. We cannot guarantee that warranty reserves will either increase or decrease in future periods. Further, in connection with the master purchase agreements that we entered into with Cisco in 2005, we agreed to extended product warranties for the benefit of Cisco. Specifically, we agreed to general three-year warranties and, in the case of epidemic failures, to five-year warranties. In addition, under the Cisco agreements, we have agreed to indemnify Cisco for costs incurred in rectifying epidemic failures, up to the greater of (on a per claim basis) 25% of all amounts paid to us by Cisco during the preceding 12 months (approximately, $15.4 million at December 31, 2009) or $9.0 million, plus replacement costs. If we are required to make payments under this indemnity, our operating results may be adversely affected. Moreover, these claims in the future, regardless of their outcome, could adversely affect our business.
 
 
Our revenue and operating results may fluctuate significantly from period to period, on a quarterly or annual basis, causing volatility in our stock price.
 
    Our total revenue and operating results have fluctuated from quarter to quarter in the past and are expected to continue to do so in the future. As a result, you should not rely on quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our operating results as an indication of our future performance. Fluctuations in our total revenue and operating results could negatively affect the trading price of our stock. In addition, our total revenue and results of operations may, in the future, be below the expectations set by us or of analysts and investors, which could cause our stock price to decline. Factors that are likely to cause our revenue and operating results to fluctuate include, for example, the periodic costs associated with the generation of mask sets for new products and product improvements and the risk factors discussed throughout this section. Additional factors that could cause our revenue and operating results to fluctuate from period to period include:
 
 
 
foreign currency exchange fluctuations;
 
 
 
the timing and volume of orders received from our customers;
 
 
 
market demand for, and changes in the average selling prices of, our products;

 
 
the rate of qualification and adoption of our products by networking OEMs;

 
 
fluctuating demand for, and lengthy life cycles of, the products and systems that incorporate our products;

 
 
the market success of the OEMs’ systems that incorporate our products;

 
 
the ability of our wafer foundries to supply us with production capacity and finished products to sell to our OEM customers;

 
 
changes in the level of our costs and operating expenses;

 
 
our ability to receive our manufactured products from our wafer foundries and ship them within a particular reporting period;

 
 
deferrals or cancellations of customer orders in anticipation of the development and commercialization of new technologies or for other reasons;

 
 
changes in our product lines and revenue mix;

 
 
the timing of the introduction by others of competing, replacement or substitute products technologies;

 
 
our ability or the ability of our OEM customers that use our products to procure required components or fluctuations in the cost of such components;

 
 
cyclical fluctuations in semiconductor or networking markets; and

 
 
general economic conditions that may affect end-user demand for products that use our products.
 
In addition, RMI’s business has historically been subject to seasonality, which may cause us to experience greater fluctuation of our revenues following the acquisition.
 
 
The cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and the networking markets could adversely affect our operating results and our business.
 
    We expect our business to be subject to the cyclicality of the semiconductor industry, especially the market for communications integrated circuits. Historically, there have been significant downturns in this industry segment, characterized by reduced demand for integrated circuits and accelerated erosion of average selling prices. At times, these downturns have lasted for prolonged periods of time. Furthermore, from time to time, the semiconductor industry also has experienced periods of increased demand and production constraints, in which event we may not be able to have our products produced in sufficient quantities, if at all, to satisfy our customers’ needs. It is likely that the communications integrated circuit business will experience similar downturns in the future and that, during such times, our business could be affected adversely. It is also likely that the semiconductor industry will experience periods of strong demand. We may have difficulty in obtaining enough products to sell to our customers or may face substantial increases in the wafer prices charged by our foundries.
 
    In addition, the networking industry from time to time has experienced and may experience a pronounced downturn. To respond to a downturn, many networking service providers may be required to slow their research and development activities, cancel or delay new product developments, reduce their workforces and inventories and take a cautious approach to acquiring new equipment and technologies from networking OEMs, which would have a significant negative impact on our business. In the future, a downturn in the networking industry may cause our operating results to fluctuate significantly from year to year, which also may tend to increase the volatility of the price of our common stock.

We may not be able to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights, which could impair our ability to compete and reduce the value of our technology.
 
    Our success and future revenue growth depend, in part, on our ability to protect our intellectual property. We rely primarily on patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret laws, as well as confidentiality procedures, to protect our proprietary technologies and processes. However, these measures may not provide meaningful protection for our intellectual property.
 
    We cannot assure you that any patents will issue from any of our pending applications. Any rights granted under any of our existing or future patents may not provide meaningful protection or any commercial advantage to us. For example, such patents could be challenged or circumvented by our competitors or declared invalid or unenforceable in judicial or administrative proceedings. The failure of any patents to adequately protect our technology would make it easier for our competitors to offer similar products. We do not have foreign patents or pending applications corresponding to many of our U.S. patents and patent applications, including in some foreign countries where our products are sold or may be sold in the future. Even if foreign patents are granted, effective enforcement in foreign countries may not be available.
 
    With respect to our other proprietary rights, it may be possible for third parties to copy or otherwise obtain and use our proprietary technology or marks without authorization or to develop similar technology independently. Monitoring unauthorized use of our proprietary technology or marks is difficult and costly, and we cannot be certain that the steps we have taken will prevent misappropriation or unauthorized use of our technology or marks. In addition, effective patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret protection may not be available or may be limited in certain foreign countries. Many companies based in the U.S. have encountered substantial infringement problems in foreign countries, including countries in which we sell products. Our failure to effectively protect our intellectual property could reduce the value of our technology and could harm our business, financial condition and operating results.
 
    Furthermore, we have in the past and may in the future initiate claims or litigation against third parties to determine the validity and scope of proprietary rights of others. In addition, we may in the future initiate litigation to enforce our intellectual property rights or the rights of our customers or to protect our trade secrets. Litigation by us could result in significant expense and divert the efforts of our technical and management personnel and could materially and adversely affect our business, whether or not such litigation results in a determination favorable to us.
 
 
Any claim that our products or our proprietary technology infringe third party intellectual property rights could increase our costs of operation and distract management and could result in expensive settlement costs.
 
    The semiconductor industry is characterized by vigorous protection and pursuit of intellectual property rights or positions, which have resulted in often protracted and expensive litigation. From time to time, we are involved in litigation relating to intellectual property rights. In addition, we have received notices from time to time that claim we have infringed upon or misappropriated intellectual property rights owned by others. We typically respond when appropriate and as advised by legal counsel. We cannot assure you that parties will not pursue litigation with respect to those allegations. We may, in the future, receive similar notices, any of which could lead to litigation against us. For example, parties may initiate litigation based on allegations that we have infringed their intellectual property rights or misappropriated or misused their trade secrets or may seek to invalidate or otherwise render unenforceable one or more of our patents. Litigation against us can result in significant expense and divert the efforts of our management, technical, marketing and other personnel, whether or not the litigation results in a determination adverse to us. We cannot assure you that we will be able to prevail or settle any such claims or that we will be able to do so at a reasonable cost. In the event of an adverse result in any such litigation, we could be required to pay substantial damages for past infringement and royalties for any future use of the technology. In addition, we may be required to cease the sale of certain products, recall certain products from the market, redesign certain products offered for sale or under development or cease the use of certain marks or names. We cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully redesign our products or do so at a reasonable cost. Additionally, we have in the past sought and may in the future seek to obtain a license to a third party’s intellectual rights and have granted and may in the future grant a license to certain of our intellectual property rights to a third party in connection with a cross-license agreement or a settlement of claims or actions asserted against us. However, we cannot assure you that we would be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms, or at all
 
    Our customers could also become the target of litigation relating to the patent and other intellectual property rights of others. This could trigger technical support and indemnification obligations in some of our license or customer agreements. These obligations could result in substantial expenses, including the payment by us of costs and damages related to claims of patent infringement. In addition to the time and expense required for us to provide support or indemnification to our customers, any such litigation could disrupt the businesses of our customers, which in turn could hurt our relations with our customers and cause the sale of our products to decrease. We cannot assure you that claims for indemnification will not be made or that if made, such claims would not have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results or financial condition. We do not have any insurance coverage for intellectual property infringement claims for which we may be obligated to provide indemnification. If we are obligated to pay damages in excess of, or otherwise outside of, our insurance coverage, or if we have to settle these claims, our operating results could be adversely affected.

If we are unable to compete effectively, our revenue and market share may be reduced.
 
    Our business is extremely competitive, especially during the design-in phase of our customers’ design cycles. We compete with large semiconductor manufacturers, many of which have more established reputations, more diverse customer bases and greater financial and other resources than we do. In addition, our OEM customers may design their own integrated circuits to address their system needs. As we develop new applications for our products and expand into new markets, we expect to face even greater competition. Our present and future competitors may be able to better anticipate customer and industry demands and to respond more quickly and efficiently to those demands, such as with product offerings, financial discounts or other incentives. Furthermore, our OEM customers may be able develop or acquire integrated circuits that satisfy their needs faster or most cost effectively than we can. We cannot assure you that we will be able to compete effectively against these and our other competitors. If we do not compete effectively, our revenue and market share may decline.
 
Our success may depend on our ability to comply with new or evolving industry standards applicable to our products or our business.
 
    Our ability to compete in the future may depend on our ability to ensure that our products comply with evolving industry standards affecting our customers’ equipment and other markets in which we compete. In addition, from time to time, new industry standards may emerge which could render our products incompatible with the products of our customers or suppliers. In order to ensure compliance with the relevant standards, we may be required to devote significant time, capital and other resources to modify or redesign our existing products or to develop new products. We cannot assure you that we will be able to develop products which comply with prevailing standards. If we are unable to develop these products in a timely manner, we may miss significant business opportunities, and our revenue and operating results could suffer.
 
If an earthquake or other natural disaster disrupts the operations of our third party wafer foundries or other vendors located in high risk regions, we could experience significant delays in the production or shipment of our products.
 
    TSMC and UMC, which manufacture our products, along with most of our vendors who handle the assembly and testing of our products, are located in Asia. The risk of an earthquake in the Pacific Rim region is significant due to the proximity of major earthquake fault lines. In September 1999, a major earthquake in Taiwan affected the facilities of several of these third party vendors, as well as other providers of these services. As a result of this earthquake, these vendors suffered power outages and disruptions that impaired their production capacity. In March 2002 and September 2003, additional earthquakes occurred in Taiwan. The occurrence of additional earthquakes or other natural disasters could result in the disruption of the wafer foundry or assembly and test capacity of the third parties that supply these services to us. We may not be able to obtain alternate capacity on favorable terms, if at all.
 
Any future acquisitions we make could disrupt our business, and harm our financial condition and dilute our stockholders.
 
    In the future, we may consider additional opportunities to acquire other businesses or technologies that would complement our current offerings, expand the breadth of our markets or enhance our technical capabilities. Acquisitions present a significant number of potential challenges that could, if not met, disrupt our business operations, increase our operating costs, reduce the value to us of the acquired company or business, including:
 
 
 
integration of the acquired employees, operations, technologies and products with our existing business and products;

 
 
focusing management’s time and attention on our existing core business;

 
 
retention of business relationships with suppliers and customers of the acquired company;

 
 
entering markets in which we may lack prior experience;

 
 
retention of key employees of the acquired company or business;

 
 
amortization of intangible assets, write-offs, stock-based compensation and other charges relating to the acquired business and our acquisition costs; and

 
 
dilution to our existing stockholders from the issuance of additional shares of common stock or reduction of earnings per outstanding share in connection with an acquisition that fails to increase the value of our company.
 
    We cannot provide assurances, however, that this acquisition or future acquisitions that we might make will achieve our business objectives or increase our value or the price of our common stock.
 
 
RISKS RELATING TO OUR RECENT ACQUISITION OF RMI CORPORATION
 
The integration of RMI may not be completed successfully, cost-effectively or on a timely basis.
 
    As a result of our acquisition of RMI in October 2009, we have significantly more assets, operations and employees to manage than we did prior to the acquisition. The integration process has required us to significantly expand the scope of our operations and financial systems, and there is a significant degree of difficulty and management involvement inherent in that process. These difficulties include, among others:
 
 
 
the diversion of management’s attention from the day-to-day operations of the combined company;

 
 
the assimilation of RMI employees and the integration of two business cultures;

 
 
challenges in attracting and retaining key personnel;

 
 
the integration of information, accounting, finance, sales, billing, payroll and regulatory compliance systems;

 
 
challenges in keeping existing customers and obtaining new customers; and

 
 
challenges in combining product offerings and sales and marketing activities.
 
    There is no assurance that we will successfully or cost-effectively integrate RMI’s operations with our own. For example, the costs of achieving systems integration may substantially exceed our current estimates. As a non-public company, RMI did not have to comply with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 for internal control and other procedures. Integrating its systems and activities with ours in order to ensure our continued compliance with those requirements may continue to cause us to incur substantial additional expense. In addition, the integration process may cause an interruption of, or loss of momentum in, the activities of our business. If our management is not able to effectively manage the integration process, or if any significant business activities are interrupted as a result of the integration process, our business could suffer and our results of operations and financial condition may be harmed.
 
We may not be able to realize the anticipated synergies and other benefits we expect to achieve from the acquisition of RMI within the timeframe that is currently expected, or at all.
 
    Strategic transactions like our acquisition of RMI create numerous uncertainties and risks. As a result, the combined company may not be able to realize the expected revenue growth and other benefits and synergies that we sought to achieve from the acquisition. We believe that the businesses conducted by us and RMI prior to the merger were complementary in a number of respects and that the combined company can take advantage of synergies, economies of scale and other benefits in the following areas, among others:
 
 
 
market expansion;

 
 
increased sales to existing customers;

 
 
product and technology synergies;

 
 
operational and manufacturing synergies;

 
 
research and development synergies;

 
 
expansion of intellectual property and patent portfolio;

 
 
geographic synergies; and

 
 
cultural synergies.
 
However, these anticipated benefits and synergies are based on projections and assumptions, not actual experience, and actual results may deviate from our expectations for a variety of reasons, including those discussed in this section.
 
 
We may not be successful in our expansion into the current markets for RMI products and in addressing the new opportunities we expect to arise out of the combination.
 
RMI historically designed and developed high performance, power-optimized processor solutions for several target markets: infrastructure equipment, enterprise systems, security and storage appliances, data center systems and industrial and connected media devices. Because the RMI products serve some different markets than our products historically did, we did not have experience competing in these prior to the acquisition. The success of our expansion into these new markets will depend on a number of factors, including:
 
 
 
our ability to leverage each company’s successes to provide synergistic solutions to key customers and applications;

 
 
our ability to assimilate and retain key RMI personnel who have expertise in conducting RMI’s business;

 
 
our ability to preserve and grow RMI’s existing customer, distributor and ecosystem partner relationships;

 
 
our ability to design and develop innovative products and solutions in these new markets and to continue RMI’s success in achieving “design wins” with key customers;

 
 
our ability to provide high quality customer services and support; and

 
 
our ability to compete effectively against a larger number and broader range of competitors resulting from our entry into new markets.
 
In addition to the current markets for RMI products, we believe that the combined company is poised to address new opportunities in areas such as high-performance switching and routing control plane processing and the high-volume, ultra low-power embedded processing market for enterprise, industrial and connected media applications. If we are unsuccessful in expanding into these new market opportunities, we may not achieve the sales and revenue growth we had expected from the acquisition.
 
There is no assurance that we will be able to continue or expand upon RMI’s past success with customer design wins following the acquisition.
 
    RMI achieved strategic design wins at a wide range of leading customers such as Alcatel-Lucent, Aruba, CheckPoint, Cisco, Datang Mobile, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Huawei, Huawei-Symantec, Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co. Ltd, IBM, Juniper, LG, McAfee, Motorola, NEC, Samsung, Sun and ZTE, among others. There is no assurance that we will be able to replicate or improve upon RMI’s success in obtaining design wins from these and other customers following the acquisition. This uncertainty is compounded by the fact that RMI does not have long-term commitments from any of its existing customers. These product design processes can be lengthy, as the customers of RMI products usually require a comprehensive technical evaluation of its products before they incorporate them into their designs. If a customer’s system designer initially chooses a competitor’s product, it becomes significantly more difficult to sell RMI’s products for use in that system because changing suppliers can involve significant cost, time, effort and risk for RMI’s customers. Our failure to win a competitive design opportunity can result in foregoing revenues from a given customer’s product line for the life of that product. In addition, design opportunities may be infrequent or may be delayed. We expect to invest significant time and resources and to incur significant expenses to design RMI products to ensure compliance with relevant specifications, but even with these efforts we may have limited success in securing customer design wins for a number of reasons, including our management’s lack of experience with the markets served by RMI’s products, our failure to retain key RMI personnel involved in the customer design process and our failure to establish employee incentives and otherwise operate the RMI business in a manner that continues to place high priority on customer design wins. Our ability to compete in the markets in which RMI competed will depend, in large part, on our ability to continue to design products to ensure compliance with RMI customers’ and potential customers’ specifications and to secure design wins.
 
 
Even if we are successful in achieving customer design wins for RMI products, we may not realize the revenue growth and other benefits we expect to achieve from the acquisition.
 
The nature of the design process for RMI products requires that significant expenses be incurred prior to recognizing revenues associated with those expenses, which may harm our financial results. Even if a customer designs one of RMI’s products into its product offering, we cannot be assured that its product will be commercially successful, that we will receive any revenues from that manufacturer or that a successor design will include an RMI product. As a result, we may be unable to accurately forecast the volume and timing of orders and revenues associated with any new product introductions, which could adversely affect our results of operations. If we are unable to realize the revenue growth we expect to achieve from customer design wins for RMI products, we may not achieve the operational results we anticipate following the acquisition and our business may be adversely impacted.
 
We may experience difficulties in transitioning to smaller geometry process technologies or in achieving higher levels of design integration for the semiconductor solutions provided by RMI products, which may result in reduced manufacturing yields, delays in product deliveries, increased expenses and loss of design wins and sales.
 
We have substantial experience in transitioning the manufacturing processes for our products to each new generation of smaller geometry process technologies and believes that it will be necessary to migrate RMI’s products to such smaller geometries as well. Any transition would require us to redesign the applicable product and require us and our foundry partners to use new or modified manufacturing processes for the product. The smallest geometry process that RMI used for any semiconductors is 80 nanometer, but we expect the next generation semiconductors to be based on a 40 nanometer process. Because of our lack of experience with the RMI products and technology, we may not be as successful in migrating these products to smaller geometry process technologies as we have been with our own products. We will also depend on our relationships with foundry subcontractors to transition to smaller geometry processes successfully. If we experience difficulties in transitioning to smaller geometry process technologies or in achieving higher levels of design integration for RMI products, we may experience reduced manufacturing yields, delays in product deliveries, increased expenses and loss of design wins and sales, any of which could prevent us from realizing the anticipated benefits from the acquisition.
 
We expect to rely on third-party technologies for the development of the RMI products, and our inability to use these technologies in the future could harm our ability to compete in the markets for these products.
 
We rely on third parties for technologies that are integrated into the RMI products, such as wafer fabrication and assembly and test technologies used by its contract manufacturers, as well as licensed MIPS architecture technologies. If we are unable to continue to use or license these technologies on reasonable terms, or if these technologies fail to operate properly following the acquisition, we may not be able to secure alternatives in a timely manner, and our ability to remain competitive in the markets served by these products would be harmed. In addition, the MIPS license requires that certain improvements be made available to the community of all of MIPS’ licensees, which could conceivably reduce the proprietary advantage that we will have with this architecture. If we are unable to license technology from third parties on commercially reasonable terms in order to continue to develop current products or to develop future products for the markets served by the RMI products, we may not be able to develop these products in a timely manner or at all.
 
Our operating results will depend in part on the growth of developing sectors of the connected media market historically served by RMI.
 
The RMI business has been highly dependent on developing sectors of the connected media market, including portable media players, personal navigation devices, automobile infotainment devices and home media players. The connected media market is highly competitive and is characterized by, among other things, frequent introductions of new products and short product life cycles. If the target markets for the RMI products within these markets do not grow as rapidly or to the extent anticipated, the combined company’s business could suffer. RMI derived a significant portion of its revenues from the sale of its semiconductor solutions for use in emerging connected media applications. Our ability to sustain and increase revenue is in large part dependent on the continued growth of these rapidly evolving market sectors, whose future is largely uncertain. Many factors could impede or interfere with the expansion of these connected media market sectors, including a slowdown in overall consumer spending, consumer demand in these sectors, general economic conditions, other competing consumer electronic products and insufficient interest in new technology innovations. Any of these dynamics in the consumer electronics market could harm future sales of the RMI products and prevent us from realizing the anticipated benefits of our acquisition of RMI.
 
 
We are subject to governmental export and import controls that could subject us to liability or impair our ability to compete in foreign markets.

Because we incorporate encryption technology into our multi-core products, some of these products are subject to United States export controls and may be exported outside the United States only with the required level of export license or through an export license exception. In addition, various countries regulate the import of certain encryption technology and have enacted laws that could limit our ability to introduce products or could limit our customers’ ability to implement our products in those countries. Changes in our products or changes in export and import regulations may create delays in the introduction of our products in international markets, prevent our customers with international operations from deploying our products throughout their global systems or, in some cases, prevent the export or import of our products to certain countries altogether. Any change in export or import regulations or related legislation, shift in approach to the enforcement or scope of existing regulations, or change in the countries, persons or technologies targeted by such regulations, could result in decreased use of our products by, or an inability to export or sell our products to, existing or prospective customers with international operations and harm our business.
 
RISKS RELATING TO OUR COMMON STOCK
 
In connection with our acquisition of RMI in October 2009, we issued a substantial number of shares of common stock around the time of closing and we may be required to additional shares before December 31, 2010, which would further dilute the ownership interests of our other stockholders.
 
    In connection with the acquisition of RMI, we issued or reserved for issuance 5.0 million shares of our common stock at closing as merger consideration to RMI stockholders and as incentive stock awards to RMI employees. We may be required issue up to 1.6 million additional shares to former RMI stockholders as earn-out consideration before December 31, 2010, if the maximum earn-out is achieved. Our issuance of additional shares of common stock as earn-out consideration may result in substantial percentage dilution of the ownership interests of our other stockholders at that time. Our issuance of shares in connection with the RMI acquisition also may have an adverse impact on our net earnings per share in fiscal periods that include (or follow) the date of the acquisition, as we anticipate that the transaction will be dilutive on the basis of net earnings per common share for the foreseeable future following the acquisition.
 
The price of our stock could decrease as a result of shares being sold in the market, including sales by former RMI stockholders who received shares in connection with our acquisition of RMI.
 
    Sales of a substantial number of shares of common stock in the public market could adversely affect the prevailing market price of our common stock from time to time. Substantially all the shares of our common stock currently outstanding are eligible for sale in the public market but sales by our affiliates will be subject to conditions of Rule 144 (other than holding period requirements) including the volume restrictions set forth in SEC Rule 144(e).
 
    Additionally, as the shares of common stock we issued in our acquisition of RMI become eligible for resale, the sale of those shares could adversely impact our stock price. All of the shares of our common stock issued as merger consideration on the closing date are subject to a complete trading lock-up through April 30, 2010, and 50% of those shares will be subject to a complete trading lock-up through October 30, 2010. In addition, 50% of the restricted stock units that we issued to certain RMI employees at closing will vest on April 30, 2010 and the remaining 50% will vest on October 30, 2010. These equity incentive shares will be registered and will therefore generally not be subject to resale restrictions under federal securities laws. Accordingly, a substantial number of shares of our common stock will become eligible for resale on April 30 and October 30, 2010. Our stock price may suffer a significant decline as a result of the sudden increase in the number of shares sold in the public market or market perception that the increased number of shares available for sale will exceed the demand for our common stock.

Our stock price could drop, and there could be significantly less trading activity in our stock, if securities or industry analysts downgrade our stock or do not publish research or reports about our business.
 
    Our stock price and the trading market for our stock are likely to be affected significantly by the research and reports concerning our company and our business which are published by industry and securities analysts. We do not have any influence or control over these analysts, their reports or their recommendations. Our stock price and the trading market for our stock could be negatively affected if any analyst downgrades our stock, publishes a report which is critical of our business, or discontinues coverage of us.

Our common stock has experienced substantial price volatility.
 
    Our common stock has experienced substantial price volatility. Such volatility may occur in the future, particularly because of quarter-to-quarter variations in our actual or anticipated financial results, or the reported financial results of other semiconductor companies or our customers. Stock price volatility may also result from product announcements by us or our competitors, or from changes in perceptions about the various types of products we manufacture and sell. In addition, our stock price may fluctuate due to price and volume fluctuations in the stock market, especially in the technology sector.
 
 
Provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws, Delaware law and customer agreements might delay or prevent a change of control transaction and depress the market price of our stock.
 
    Various provisions of our certificate of incorporation and bylaws might have the effect of making it more difficult for a third party to acquire, or discouraging a third party from attempting to acquire, control of us. These provisions could limit the price that certain investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock. Certain of these provisions eliminate cumulative voting in the election of directors, limit the right of stockholders to call special meetings and establish specific procedures for director nominations by stockholders and the submission of other proposals for consideration at stockholder meetings.
 
    We are also subject to provisions of Delaware law which could delay or make more difficult a merger, tender offer or proxy contest involving us. In particular, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any business combination with any interested stockholder for a period of three years unless specific conditions are met. Any of these provisions could have the effect of delaying, deferring or preventing a change in control, including, without limitation, discouraging a proxy contest or making more difficult the acquisition of a substantial block of our common stock.
 
    Our board of directors might issue up to 50,000,000 shares of preferred stock without stockholder approval on such terms as the board might determine. The rights of the holders of common stock will be subject to, and might be adversely affected by, the rights of the holders of any preferred stock that might be issued in the future.
 
    Under our master purchase agreements with Cisco, in the event of, among other things, the transfer of at least 50% of our voting control to a Cisco competitor that generates less than 50% of its annual sales from integrated circuit products, Cisco may exercise rights to purchase our knowledge-based processors directly from our manufacturers, subject to payments to us. This provision may discourage or complicate attempts by some third parties to acquire us.
 
 
Our stockholder rights plan could prevent stockholders from receiving a premium over the market price for their shares from a potential acquirer.
 
    We adopted a stockholder rights plan that generally entitles our stockholders to rights to acquire additional shares of our common stock when a third party acquires 15.0% of our common stock or commences or announces its intent to commence a tender offer for at least 15.0% of our common stock, other than for certain stockholders that were stockholders prior to our initial public offering as to whom this threshold is 20.0%. This plan could delay, deter or prevent an investor from acquiring us in a transaction that could otherwise result in stockholders receiving a premium over the market price for their shares of common stock.

We may need to obtain financing in order to fund our growth strategy.
 
    We believe that we have or will have access to capital sufficient to satisfy our working capital requirements for at least the next 12 months. However, it may become necessary for us to raise additional funds to support our growth. We cannot assure you that we will be able to obtain financing when needed or that, if available to us, the terms will be acceptable to us. If we issue equity securities in any financing, the new securities may have rights and preferences senior to our shares of common stock, and the ownership interest in us of our current stockholders will be proportionately reduced. If we issued debt securities, they will rank senior to all equity securities. If we are unable to raise additional capital, we may not be able to implement our growth strategy, and our business could be harmed significantly. Our future capital requirements will depend on many factors, including the amount of revenue we generate, the timing and extent of spending to support product development efforts, the expansion of sales and marketing activities, the timing of introductions of new products, the costs to ensure access to adequate manufacturing capacity, and the continuing market acceptance of our products, and any future business acquisitions that we might undertake. However, if we do not meet our plan, we could be required, or might elect, to seek additional funding through public or private equity or debt financing and additional funds may not be available on terms acceptable to us or at all. We also might decide to raise additional capital at such times and upon such terms as management considers favorable and in the interests of the Company. We may sell up to approximately an additional $120 million of our debt and/or equity securities (before reductions for expenses, underwriting discounts and commissions) under our existing shelf registration statement on Form S-3 which may result in an increase in the number of shares and decline in earnings per share. We may sell these securities from time-to-time without prior announcement.
 

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS OF THE REGISTRANT
 
    The following table provides the names, ages and offices of each of our executive officers as of January 31, 2010:


Title
 
Age
 
Position
Ronald Jankov
    51  
Director, Chief Executive Officer and President
Behrooz Abdi
    48  
Executive Vice President and General Manager
Michael Tate
    44  
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Marcia Zander
    46  
Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales
Varadarajan Sirnivasan
    58  
Vice President of Product Development and Chief Technical Officer
Dimitrios Dimitrelis
    52  
Vice President of Engineering
Mozfar Maghsoudnia
    43  
Vice President of Worldwide Manufacturing
Ibrahim Korgav
    61  
Senior Vice President of Worldwide Business Operations
Chris O'Reilly
    36  
Vice President of Marketing
Roland Cortes
    44  
Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
 
    Ronald Jankov has served as our President, Chief Executive Officer and as a member of our board of directors since April 2000.
 
    Behrooz Abdi has served as our Executive Vice President and General Manager in charge of our MPS/CPS business since November 2009. From November 2007 to October 2009, Mr. Abdi was President and Chief Executive Officer of RMI Corporation. From March 2004 to November 2007, Mr. Abdi was Senior Vice President and General Manager of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies at Qualcomm, Inc.  Prior to Qualcomm, Mr. Abdi held leadership and engineering positions at Motorola in its Semiconductor Products Sector, now Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.  His last role at Motorola was Vice President and General Manager for the Radio Products Division from July 1985 to December 2003.
 
    Michael Tate has served as our Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer since July 2007. Prior to joining us, Mr. Tate was interim chief financial officer, vice president, corporate controller, and treasurer at Marvell Technology Group Ltd. He joined Marvell in January 2001 as part of Marvell’s acquisition of Galileo Technology Ltd.
 
    Marcia Zander has served as our Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales since January 2006 and Vice President of Sales since July 1999.
 
    Varadarajan Srinivasan has served as our Vice President of Product Development since March 1996, as our Chief Technical Officer since August 2000.
 
    Dimitrios Dimitrelis has served as our Vice President of Engineering since July 2002. From July 1999 to March 2002, Mr. Dimitrelis was Director of Engineering for Vitesse Semiconductor Corp., a communications integrated circuit company, where he was primarily responsible for the development of a 10G network processor.
 
    Mozafar Maghsoudnia has served as our Vice President of Worldwide Manufacturing since January 2007, as Vice President of Manufacturing since August 2006, and Director of Technology since June 2003. From June 1988 to June 2003, Mr. Maghsoudnia was employed by Analog Devices, Inc., where he was responsible for wafer fabrication and technology in his last assignment.
 
    Ibrahim Korgav has served as our Senior Vice President of Worldwide Business Operations since January 2007 and as our Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and Business Operations from March 2002 to January 2007.
 
    Chris O’Reilly has served as our Vice President of Marketing since August 2007. Prior to August 2007, Mr. O’Reilly served as our senior director of marketing, director of sales for the Asia Pacific region and senior marketing manager since 1999.
 
    Roland Cortes has served as our Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary since April 2007. Prior to April 2007, Mr. Cortes served as our Secretary since May 2004, as our Senior Director of Legal Affairs and IP Management since July 2002, and as our Director of Legal Affairs and IP Management since April 1999.
 
 
ITEM 1B.
UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS.
 
    Not applicable.
 
ITEM 2.
PROPERTIES.
 
    The following table sets forth the location, and approximate square footage of each of the principal properties used by us during 2009. All properties are leased under operating leases which expire at various times through 2015.
 
Location
 
Approximate
Square Footage
 
Mountain View, California, USA
    42,000  
Cupertino, California, USA
    51,597  
Austin, Texas, USA
    15,630  
Banglore, India
    20,860  
 
    In addition, we lease office spaces in Toulouse, France, Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Shenzhen, China, Taipei and Hsinchu, Taiwan, Seoul, Korea, Tokyo, Japan, and Mumbai, India. We believe that these facilities are adequate for our current needs and that suitable additional or substitute space will be available as needed to accommodate foreseeable expansion of our operations.
 
ITEM 3.
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.
 
    We are not involved in any legal proceedings that management believes will have a material adverse effect our business, results of operations, financial position or cash flows.
 
ITEM 4.
SUBMISSION OF MATTERS TO A VOTE OF SECURITY HOLDERS.
 
    On October 23, 2009, we held an special meeting of our stockholders. The stockholders approved the issuance of a maximum of 13,080,000 shares of our common stock as merger consideration and to new employees in connection with the proposed acquisition of RMI by the votes set forth below:
 
             
For
 
Against
 
Abstentions
 
Broker Non-Votes
19,783,613
 
32,964
 
16,462
 
0
 
PART II
 
ITEM 5.
MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES

Market Information for Common Stock
 
    Our common stock is traded on the Global Select Market of the NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol “NETL”. The following table sets forth, for the periods indicated, the intra-day high and low per share sale prices of our common stock, as reported on the Global Select Market.


   
Price Range Per Share
 
   
High
   
Low
 
Fiscal 2009
     
Fourth quarter
  $ 48.00     $ 36.87  
Third quarter
  $ 46.80     $ 32.36  
Second quarter
  $ 38.50     $ 26.77  
First quarter
  $ 28.57     $ 19.68  
                 
Fiscal 2008
               
Fourth quarter
  $ 30.45     $ 14.42  
Third quarter
  $ 39.10     $ 26.98  
Second quarter
  $ 40.26     $ 23.44  
First quarter
  $ 32.90     $ 20.15  
 
Holders
 
    As of January 31, 2009, there were approximately 152 holders of record (not including beneficial holders of stock held in street names) of our common stock.

Dividend Policy
 
    We have not declared or paid cash dividends on our common stock and do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. We expect to retain future earnings, if any, to fund the development and growth of our business. Our board of directors will determine future dividends, if any. Under a credit agreement dated June 19, 2009 with a syndication of banks, we are prohibited from the declaration and payment of cash dividends.
 
    On February 16, 2010, the Board of Directors approved a two-for-one stock split of our common stock, to be effected pursuant to the issuance of additional shares as a stock dividend. The stock dividend is payable on March 19, 2010 to stockholders of record as of March 5, 2010.

Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans
 
    See Item 12 of Part III of this Report regarding information about securities authorized for issuance under our equity compensation plans.
 
 
Performance Graph
 
    The following graph shows the 5 years cumulative total stockholder return (change in stock price plus reinvested dividends) assuming the investment of $100 on December 31, 2004 in each of the Company’s common stock, the S&P 500 Index and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. The comparisons in the table are required by the SEC and are not intended to forecast or be indicative of possible future performance of the Company’s common stock.

COMPARISON OF 5 YEARS CUMULATIVE TOTAL RETURN
Among NetLogic Microsystems, Inc., the S&P 500 Index
and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index


 GRAPHIC
 

   
Cumulative Total Returns
 
   
12/31/2004
   
12/31/2005
   
12/31/2006
   
12/31/2007
   
12/31/2008
   
12/31/2009
 
NetLogic Micrsosystems, Inc.
  $ 100.00     $ 272.40     $ 216.90     $ 322.00     $ 220.10     $ 462.60  
S&P 500 Index
  $ 100.00     $ 103.00     $ 117.03     $ 121.16     $ 74.53     $ 92.01  
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index
  $ 100.00     $ 110.66     $ 107.78     $ 94.17     $ 48.96     $ 83.06  

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities
 
    On October 30, 2009, we completed the acquisition of RMI and issued a total of 5.0 million shares of common stock to the holders of preferred stock of RMI, including shares withheld for escrow as security for RMI’s indemnity obligations and for estimated expenses of escrow.  Pursuant to the terms of the merger agreement for the RMI acquisition we also became obligated for the contingent issuance of  a maximum of approximately 1.6 million additional shares of common stock subject to the achievement of earn-out milestones for revenues generated from the products acquired from RMI during a 12-month period following the closing date of the acquisition.  No underwriters were involved in the transaction.  We issued and agreed to issue these shares in a merger exchange transaction exempt from the registration requirements under section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 pursuant to Section 4(2) and Rule 506 under Regulation D.
 
 
ITEM 6.
SELECTED CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL DATA
 
    The following selected consolidated financial data are qualified by reference to, and should be read in conjunction with, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and the Financial Statements and related Notes included in Item 8 of this report, which discusses factors affecting the comparability of such financial data.
 
    The selected balance sheet data as of December 31, 2009 and 2008 and selected statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007 are derived from our audited financial statements included elsewhere in this report. The selected balance sheet data as of December 31, 2007, 2006 and 2005 and the selected statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2006 and 2005 were derived from audited financial statements not included in this report. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of our future results.
 
   
Year Ended December 31,
 
   
2009
   
2008
   
2007
   
2006
   
2005
 
   
(in thousands, except per share data)
 
Statements of Operations Data:
                             
Revenue
  $ 174,689     $ 139,927     $ 109,033     $ 96,806     $ 81,759  
Cost of revenue
    99,251       61,616       44,732       36,762       33,415  
Gross profit
    75,438       78,311       64,301       60,044       48,344  
Operating expenses:
                                       
Research and development
    73,631       51,607       45,175       36,578       21,939  
Selling, general and administrative
    43,931       26,567       19,672       15,455       10,936  
Change in contingent earn-out liability
    2,008       -       -       -       -  
Acquisition-related costs
    5,412       -       -       -       -  
In-process research and development
    -       -       1,610       10,700       -  
Total operating expenses
    124,982       78,174       66,457       62,733       32,875  
Income (loss) from operations
    (49,544 )     137       (2,156 )     (2,689 )     15,469  
Interest income
    992       1,595       4,431       3,737       1,568  
Interest expense
    (1,666 )     (33 )     -               (203 )
Other income and expense, net
    (4 )     (59 )     32       3       (16 )
Income (loss) before income taxes
    (50,222 )     1,640       2,307       1,051       16,818  
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes
    (3,060 )     (1,937 )     (288 )     459       379  
Net income (loss)
  $ (47,162 )   $ 3,577     $ 2,595     $ 592     $ 16,439  
Net income (loss) per share - basic
  $ (2.04 )   $ 0.17     $ 0.13     $ 0.03     $ 0.93  
Net income (loss) per share - diluted
  $ (2.04 )   $ 0.16     $ 0.12     $ 0.03     $ 0.87  
Shares used in calculation - basic
    23,091       21,472       20,747       19,758       17,725  
Shares used in calculation - diluted
    23,091       22,314       21,938       21,107       18,992  
                                         
   
December 31,
 
      2009       2008       2007       2006       2005  
   
(in thousands)
 
Balance Sheet Data:
                                       
Cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments
  $ 44,278     $ 96,541     $ 50,689     $ 89,879     $ 65,788  
Working capital
    66,790       87,853       63,956       95,986       65,162  
Total assets
    532,111       245,771       203,151       157,769       85,529  
Software licenses and other obligations
    5,446       1,219       2,528       2,625       687  
Stockholders' equity
    425,955       200,267       171,888       142,524       68,656  
 
    The selected consolidated financial data presents financial information in the relevant periods for the acquisition of the IDT NSE business in mid-July 2009, the acquisition of RMI Corp. completed in late October 2009, the acquisition of the TCAM2 and TCAM-CR network search engine products and certain related assets from Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in August 2007, the acquisition of Aeluros, Inc. completed in late October 2007, and the acquisition of NSE Business from Cypress Semiconductor Corp. completed in February 2006. See Note 2 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements under Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K for further discussion of these acquisitions. The coparability of the data in the table above is affected by our adoption of various new accounting guidance in the periods presents, specifically, those related to business combinations, stock compensation and income taxes. 
 
 
ITEM 7.
MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS.

Overview
 
    We are a leading fabless semiconductor company that designs, develops and sells proprietary high-performance processors and high speed integrated circuits that are used to enhance the performance and functionality of advanced 3G/4G mobile wireless infrastructure, data center, enterprise, metro Ethernet, edge and core infrastructure networks.  Our market-leading product portfolio includes high-performance multi-core processors, knowledge-based processors, high-speed 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet physical layer devices, network search engines, and ultra low-power embedded processors.  These products are designed into high-performance systems such as switches, routers, wireless base stations, radio network controllers, security appliances, networked storage appliances, service gateways and connected media devices offered by leading original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as AlaxalA Networks Corporation, Alcatel-Lucent,  ARRIS Group, Inc.,  Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.,  Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell Inc., Ericsson, Fortinet, Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Hangzhou H3C Technologies Co. Ltd, Hitachi, Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Huawei Symantec Technologies Co.,Ltd , IBM Corporation, Juniper Networks, Inc., LG Electronics, Inc., Motorola, Inc., NEC Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Inc., Tellabs, and ZTE Corporation.
 
    The products and technologies we have developed and acquired are targeted to enable our customers to develop systems that support the increasing speeds and complexity of the Internet infrastructure. We believe there is a growing need to include multi-core processors, knowledge-based processors, and high speed physical layer devices in a larger number of such systems as networks transition to all Internet Protocol (IP) packet processing at increasing speeds and complexity.
 
    The equipment and systems that use our products are technically complex. As a result, the time from our initial customer engagement design activity to volume production can be lengthy and may require considerable support from our design engineering, research and development, sales, and marketing personnel in order to secure the engagement and commence product sales to the customer. Once the customer’s equipment is in volume production, however, it generally has a life cycle of three to five years and requires less ongoing support.
 
    We derive revenue primarily from sales of semiconductor products to OEMs, their contract manufacturers and distributors. Usually, we sell the initial shipments of a product for a new design engagement directly to the OEM customer. Once the design enters volume production, the OEM frequently outsources its manufacturing to contract manufacturers who purchase the products directly from us.
 
    We also use distributors to provide valuable assistance to end-users in delivery of our products and related services. In accordance with standard market practice, our distributor agreements limit the distributor’s ability to return product up to a portion of purchases in the preceding quarter and limit price protection for inventory on-hand if it subsequently lowers prices on our products.  We recognize sales through distributors at the time of shipment to end customers.
 
    As a fabless semiconductor company, our business is less capital intensive than others because we rely on third parties to manufacture, assemble, and test our products. In general, we do not anticipate making significant capital expenditures aside from business acquisitions that we might make from time to time. In the future, as we launch new products or expand our operations, however, we may require additional funds to procure product mask sets, order elevated quantities of wafers from our foundry partners, perform qualification testing and assemble and test those products.
 
    Because we purchase all wafers from suppliers with fabrication facilities and outsource the assembly and testing to third party vendors, a significant portion of our costs of revenue consists of payments to third party vendors.
 

Recent Acquisitions
 
    On October 30, 2009, we completed the acquisition of RMI, a provider of high-performance and low-power multi-core, multi-threaded processors. Pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger Reorganization by and among us, Roadster Merger Corporation, RMI Corporation and WP VIII Representative LLC dated as of May 31, 2009, or the merger agreement, on October 30, 2009, Roadster Merger Corporation was merged with and into RMI, and we delivered merger consideration of approximately 5.0 million shares of our common stock and $12.6 million cash to the paying agent for distribution to the holders of RMI capital stock. Approximately 10% of the shares of our common stock are being held in escrow as security for claims and expenses that might arise during the first 12 months following the closing date. The closing price of a share of our common stock on October 30, 2009 was $38.01.
 
    We may be required to issue and deliver up to an additional 1.6 million shares of common stock and pay an additional $15.9 million cash to the former holders of RMI capital stock as earn-out consideration based upon achieving specified percentages of revenue targets for either the 12-month period from October 1, 2009 through September 30, 2010, or the 12-month period from November 1, 2009 through October 31, 2010, whichever period results in the higher percentage of the revenue target. The additional earn-out consideration, if any, net of applicable indemnity claims, will be paid on or before December 31, 2010.
 
    On July 17, 2009, we completed the IDT NSE acquisition. The acquisition was accounted for as a business combination during the third quarter of fiscal 2009. As purchase consideration we paid $98.2 million in cash, net of a price adjustment based on a determination of the actual amount of inventory received.
 
    On October 24, 2007, we completed the merger and acquisition of Aeluros, Inc. which we refer to as the “Aeluros Acquisition”. The acquisition was accounted for as a business combination during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007. We paid $57.1 million in cash upon the closing of the transaction in exchange for all of the outstanding equity securities of Aeluros. We reserved 104,000 shares of common stock for future issuance upon the exercise of unvested employee stock options of Aeluros that we assumed and are subject to continued employment vesting requirements. In addition, under the terms of the definitive agreement, we paid $15.5 million cash in February 2009 based on the attainment of revenue performance milestones for the acquired business during the one year period following the close of the transaction.
 
    Our results of operations for 2009 reflect two months of revenues subsequent to the RMI acquisition and five and one-half months of revenue subsequent to the IDT NSE acquisition.  Revenues in the second half of 2009, included $16.3 million attributable to the IDT NSE acquisition and $14.5 million of revenue attributable to the RMI acquisition.  The last quarter of 2009 also included operating costs associated with an additional 269 employees from the RMI acquisition.  Results of operations in 2010 will reflect a full year of revenues and costs attributable to both acquisitions and consequently will be substantially higher than comparable period results in 2009.
 

Outlook and Challenges
 
    Our year-over-year revenue increased from $139.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2008 to $174.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2009.  In early 2009, in light of a volatile macro-economic environment and a decrease in demand, we focused on operating efficiencies and containing our cash operating expense growth   During the second half of 2009 we experienced an increase in sequential quarterly revenue growth.  Our quarterly revenues grew from $32.5 million in the second quarter of 2009 to $42.3 million in the third quarter of 2009 to $69.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2009.  The sequential increase in our quarterly revenues was due to a combination of an improvement in the macroeconomic environment as well as increased demand for our products as result of new customer programs being introduced into the market utilizing our products and new revenues from our acquisitions.  Given the resumption of our revenue growth, for 2010 we have shifted from focusing on containing our cash operating expenses to strategically investing in our product development and scaling our business operations to support our growth as well as the continued succesful integration of the IDT NSE business and RMI.  Our continued integration efforts include, the assimilation of employees; retaining key personnel; process and system rationalization related to our management information and enterprise resource planning systems to keep in pace with our breadth and scale of business, while maintaining regulatory compliance; and keeping existing customers and obtaining new customers.
 
    For the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008, and 2007, our top five customers in terms of revenue accounted for approximately 68%, 68%, and 79% of total product revenue, respectively. Although we believe our revenues will continue to be concentrated with our significant customers, we expect continued favorable market trends, such as the increasing number of 10 Gigabit ports as enterprises and datacenters upgrade their legacy networks to better accommodate the proliferation of video and virtualization applications, and the growing mobile wireless infrastructure and IPTV markets, will enable us to broaden our customer base. Additionally, our expanding product portfolio will also help us further diversify our customer and product revenues as well as expanding our product portfolio with our existing customers.
 
Cisco Business
 
    Cisco and its contract manufacturers have accounted for a large percentage of our historical revenue. At Cisco’s request, in 2007, we transitioned into a just-in-time inventory arrangement covering substantially all of our product shipments to Cisco and its contract manufacturers. Pursuant to this arrangement we deliver products to Wintec Industries (“Wintec”) based on orders they place with us, but we do not recognize product revenue unless and until Wintec reports that it has delivered the product to Cisco or its contract manufacturer to incorporate into its end products. Given this arrangement, unless Cisco or its contract manufacturers take possession of our products from Wintec in accordance with the schedules provided to us, our predicted future revenue stream could vary substantially from our forecasts, and our results of operations could be materially and adversely affected. Additionally, because we own the inventory physically located at Wintec until it is shipped to Cisco and its contract manufacturers, our ability to effectively manage inventory levels may be impaired, causing our total inventory levels to increase. This, in turn, could increase our expenses associated with excess and obsolete product and negatively impact our cash flows. For the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007, our revenues from Cisco and Cisco’s contract manufactures were $61.7 million, $52.7 million and $55.1 million or approximately 35%, 38%, and 50% of total revenue.
 

Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates
 
    The preparation of financial statements and related disclosures in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. requires management to make fair and reasonable estimates and assumptions that affect reported amounts of assets, liabilities and operating expenses during the period reported. The following accounting policies require management to make estimates and assumptions. These estimates and assumptions are reviewed periodically and the effects of revisions are reflected in the period they are determined to be necessary. If actual results differ significantly from management’s estimates, our financial statements could be materially impacted. Our estimates are guided by observing the following critical accounting policies.
 
    Revenue Recognition. We derive our revenue primarily from sales of semiconductor products. We recognize revenue when all of the following criteria have been met: (i) persuasive evidence of a binding arrangement exists, (ii) delivery has occurred, (iii) the price is deemed fixed or determinable and free of contingencies and significant uncertainties, and (iv) collection is probable. The price is considered fixed or determinable at the execution of an agreement, based on specific products and quantities to be delivered at specified prices, which is often memorialized with a customer purchase order. We assess the ability to collect from our customers based on a number of factors, including credit worthiness and any past transaction history of the customer.
 
    Shipping charges billed to customers are included in product revenue and the related shipping costs are included in cost of revenue. We recognize revenue at the time of shipment to OEM customers, their contract manufacturers and our international sales representatives. Revenue consists primarily of sales of the Company’s products to OEMs, their contract manufacturers or distributors. Initial sales of the Company’s products for a new design are usually made directly to OEMs as they design and develop their product. Once their design enters production, they often outsource their manufacturing to contract manufacturers that purchase the Company’s products directly from the Company or from the Company’s distributors
 
    Product revenue and costs relating to sales made through distributors with rights of return and price credits are deferred until the distributors sell the product to end customers because the selling price is not fixed and determinable and we are not able to estimate future returns. Revenue recognition depends on notification from the distributor that product has been sold to an end customers.  On each reporting date the Company records a reduction in accounts receivable and deferred revenue based on the Company's estimate of the margin to be ultimately recognized upon sale of the product to an end customer
 
    We entered into a purchase agreement with Wintec who has become the primary purchaser of our products on a consignment basis for resale to Cisco and its contract manufacturers. We generally recognize revenue when Wintec ships our product to Cisco or its contract manufacturers.
 
    Inventory Valuation and Adverse Purchase Commitments. We value our inventories at the lower of cost or market. We record inventory reserves for estimated obsolescence or unmarketable inventories based upon assumptions about future demand and market conditions. These estimates are generally based on a 12-month forecast prepared by management. Once a reserve is established, it is maintained until the product to which it relates is sold or otherwise disposed of. If actual market conditions are less favorable than those expected by management, additional adjustment to inventory valuation may be required. The carrying value of inventory and the determination of possible adverse purchase commitments are dependent on our estimate of the yield that will be achieved, or the percent of good products identified when the product is tested.
 
    Warranty Accrual. Our products are subject to warranty for a period ranging from one to five years from the date of sale and we provide for the estimated future costs of replacement upon shipment of the product in the accompanying statements of operations. We estimate our warranty accrual based on historical claims compared to historical revenue and assume that we will have to replace products subject to a claim.
 
 
    Allowance for Doubtful Accounts. In order to determine the collectability of our accounts receivable, we continually assess factors such as previous customer transactions and the credit-worthiness of the customer. To date, our accounts receivable write-offs have been immaterial. We maintain allowances for doubtful accounts for estimated losses resulting from the inability of certain customers to make required payments. In general, we establish such allowances for accounts aged over 90 days from the invoice date, unless specific circumstances indicate that the balance is collectible.
 
    Accounting for Income Taxes. We account for income taxes under the provisions of Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 740, Income Taxes. In applying ASC740, we are required to estimate our current tax exposure together with assessing temporary differences resulting from differing treatments of items for tax and accounting purposes. These differences result in deferred tax assets and liabilities. Significant management judgment is required to assess the likelihood that our deferred tax assets will be recovered from future taxable income. During the third fiscal quarter of 2007, we reassessed the valuation allowance previously recorded against our net deferred tax assets which consisted primarily of net operating loss carryforwards and research and development tax credits. Based on our earnings history and projected future taxable income, management determined that it was more likely than not that the deferred tax assets would be realized.
 
    In the first quarter of fiscal 2007, we adopted ASC 740-10 Income Taxes.  As a result, we recognize liabilities for uncertain tax positions based on the two-step process prescribed in the interpretation. The first step is to evaluate the tax position for recognition by determining if the weight of available evidence indicates that it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained on audit, including resolution of related appeals or litigation processes, if any. The second step requires us to estimate and measure the tax benefit as the largest amount that is more than 50% likely to be realized upon ultimate settlement. It is inherently difficult and subjective to estimate such amounts, as we have to determine the probability of various possible outcomes. We reevaluate these uncertain tax positions on a quarterly basis. This evaluation is based on factors including, but not limited to, changes in facts or circumstances, changes in tax law, effectively settled issues under audit, and new audit activity. Such a change in recognition or measurement would result in the recognition of a tax benefit or an additional charge to the tax provision. Refer to Note 7—Income Taxes, of the “ Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements  ” in Item 8 for further information.
 
    Long-lived Assets and Intangible Assets. We assess the impairment of long-lived assets and intangible assets whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value of such assets may not be recoverable.  Whenever events or changes in circumstances suggest that the carrying amount of long-lived assets may not be recoverable, we estimate the future cash flows expected to be generated by the asset from its use or eventual disposition. If the sum of the expected future cash flows, which includes revenue, is less than the carrying amount of those assets, we recognize an impairment loss based on the excess of the carrying amount over the fair value of the assets. Significant management judgment is required in the forecasts of future operating results that are used in the discounted cash flow method of valuation.
 
    Goodwill. We evaluate goodwill for impairment at least on an annual basis or whenever events and changes in circumstances suggest that the carrying amount may not be recoverable from its estimated future cash flow. We perform goodwill impairment test for our single and sole reporting unit.  If the fair value of the reporting unit exceeds the carrying value of the reporting unit, goodwill is not impaired. We perform the goodwill impairment assessment at the Company level, which is the sole reporting unit. We performed our annual goodwill impairment test in the fourth quarter and concluded there was no impairment of goodwill during the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007.
 
    Stock-based Compensation. We estimate the fair value of stock options using the Black-Scholes-Merton valuation model (the “Black-Scholes Model”), consistent with the provisions of ASC 718 Compensation – Stock Compensation. The Black-Scholes Model requires the input of highly subjective assumptions, including the option’s expected life, the price volatility of the underlying stock and future forfeitures and related tax effects. The expected stock price volatility assumption was determined using a combination of the historical and implied volatility of the Company’s common stock. Changes in the subjective assumptions required in the valuation models may significantly affect the estimated value of the awards, the related stock-based compensation expense and, consequently, our results of operations.
 
 
Results of Operations

Comparison of Year Ended December 31, 2009 to Year Ended December 31, 2008

Revenue, cost of revenue and gross profit
 
    The table below sets forth the fluctuations in revenue, cost of revenue and gross profit data for the years ended December 31, 2009 and 2008 (in thousands, except percentage data):
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2009
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Revenue
  $ 174,689       100.0 %   $ 139,927       100.0 %   $ 34,762       24.8 %
Cost of revenue
    99,251       56.8 %     61,616       44.0 %     37,635       61.1 %
Gross profit
  $ 75,438       43.2 %   $ 78,311       56.0 %   $ (2,873 )     -3.7 %
 
    Revenue. Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009 increased by $34.8 million compared with that of the year ended December 31, 2008. Revenue from sales to Wintec, Cisco and Cisco’s contract manufacturers (collectively “Cisco”) represented $61.7 million of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009, compared to $52.7 million during the year ended December 31, 2008. The increase in sales to Cisco was primarily due to an increase of $8.5 million in revenue from products from our IDT NSE acquisition, $1.1 million from products from our RMI acquisition, and $9.0 million in revenue from sales of our new products to Cisco, including the NL7000 and NL8000.  The increase was partially offset by a decrease of $10.4 million in sales of our NL5000 and network search engine products.  Revenue from non-Cisco customers represented $113.0 million of total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009 compared with $87.2 million during the year end December 31, 2008.  The increase in sales to non-Cisco customers was primarily due to an increase of $7.8 million in revenue from products we acquired in the  IDT NSE acquisition, $13.3 million from products we acquired in the RMI acquisition, and $16.2 million in revenue from sales of our new products, including the NL7000 and NL9000.  This increase was partially offset by a decrease of $13.3 million in sales of our NL5000, network search engine products and physical layer products. During the year ended December 31, 2009 and 2008, Alcatel-Lucent accounted for 13% of our total revenue compared with 12% in 2008, and Huawei accounted for 10% of our total revenue and was below 10% in 2008.
 
    Cost of Revenue/Gross Profit/Gross Margin. Cost of revenue for the year ended December 31, 2009 increased by $37.6 million compared with that of the year ended December 31, 2008.  Cost of revenue increased primarily due to the increase in product sales, amortization of intangible assets, and fair value adjustments related to acquired inventory.  The increases in amortization of intangible assets and fair value adjustments related to acquired inventory were attributable to the IDT NSE and RMI acquisitions.  Cost of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2009 and 2008, respectively, included $18.9 million and $11.9 million of amortization of intangible assets expense, $1.9 million and $2.4 million of a provision for excess and obsolete inventory, and $20.4 million and $1.5 million of a fair value adjustment related to acquired inventory.  Gross margin for the year ended December 31, 2009 decreased by 12.8% compared with 2008, primarily due to increases in amortization of intangible assets and fair value adjustments related to acquired inventory.
 
 
Operating expenses
 
    The table below sets forth operating expense data for the years ended December 31, 2009 and 2008 (in thousands, except percentage data):
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2009
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Operating expenses:
                                   
Research and development
  $ 73,631       42.1 %   $ 51,607       36.9 %   $ 22,024       42.7 %
Selling, general and administrative
    43,931       25.1 %     26,567       19.0 %     17,364       65.4 %
Change in contingent earn-out liability
    2,008       1.1 %     -       -       2,008       -  
Acquisition-related costs
    5,412       3.1 %     -       -       5,412       -  
Total operating expenses
  $ 124,982       71.5 %   $ 78,174       55.9 %   $ 46,808       59.9 %
 
 
    Research and Development Expenses. Research and development expenses increased during the year ended December 31, 2009, as compared to fiscal 2008, primarily due to increases in payroll and payroll related expenses of $6.3 million, stock-based compensation expenses of $12.1 million, product development and qualification expenses of $2.8 million, and software licenses expenses of $2.1 million.  The increases were partially offset by decreases in consulting and outside vendor expenses of $1.6 million. The increase in payroll and payroll related expenses and stock-based compensation expenses were primarily due to increases in engineering headcount to support our new product development efforts, and as a result of the RMI acquisition. The increase in product development and qualification expense was primarily due to the production qualification and characterization of our processors. Product development and qualification expenses vary from period to period depending on the timing of development and tape-out of various products.  The increase in software licenses expenses was primarily due to amortization of software licenses used for our internal research and development projects.  The remainder of the increase in research and development expenses was caused by individually minor items.  We expect that research and development expenses will increase in dollar amount and may increase as a percentage of revenues in 2010 and future periods because we expect to continue to invest in hiring and training the necessary employees and building systems infrastructures required to support the development of new products, and improve existing products.
 
    Selling, General and Administrative Expenses. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased during the year ended December 31, 2009, as compared with fiscal 2008, primarily due to increases in payroll and payroll related expenses of $4.5 million, stock-based compensation expenses of $12.6 million, legal expenses of $0.7 million. The increases were offset partially by decreases in commission expense of $0.3 million, consulting and outside vendor services expenses of $0.4 million, and other professional services expenses of $0.1 million.  The increase in payroll and payroll related expenses and stock-based compensation expenses resulted primarily from increases in headcount to support our growing operations in the sales and marketing areas, and as a result of the RMI acquisition.  Selling, general and administrative expenses also included $1.8 million of amortization expense for the customer contracts and relationships, tradenames and trademarks, and non-competition agreements intangible assets for the year ended December 31, 2009. The remainder of the fluctuation in selling, general and administrative expenses was caused by individually minor items  We expect that selling, general and administrative expenses will increase in dollar amount and may increase as a percentage of revenues in 2010 and future periods because we expect to continue to invest in hiring and training additional employees and making other additional investments required to support our growing operations in the sales and marketing areas due our expanded product portfolio as result of our acquisitions.
 
    Change in contingent earn-out liability. The change in contingent earn-out liability was $2.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2009.  The change in the estimated fair value of the contingent earn-out liability to be paid out to the former holders of RMI capital stock was due to an increase in the market price of our common stock.
 
    Acquisition-Related Costs. Acquisition-related costs were $5.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2009 primarily due to legal expenses of $3.1 million, severance expenses of $0.9 million, consulting and outside vendor services of $0.7 million, and other professional service of $0.5 million, related to the IDT NSE and RMI acquisitions.  We expect that acqusition-related costs will decrease in dollar amount and may decrease as a percentage of revenues in 2010.
 
 
Other items
 
    The tables below set forth other items for the years ended December 31, 2009 and 2008 (in thousands, except percentage data):
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2009
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Interest income
  $ 992       0.6 %   $ 1,595       1.1 %   $ (603 )     -37.8 %
 
    Interest Income.  Interest income decreased during the year ended December 31, 2009, as compared with fiscal 2008, primarily due to decreased interest income on cash and cash equivalents, and short-term investment balances as a result of lower yields on our investments and lower invested balances due to the financing of IDT NSE and RMI acquisitions.
   
Year ended
December 31,
2009
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Interest expense
  $ (1,666 )     -1.0 %   $ (33 )     0.0 %   $ (1,633 )     4948.5 %
 
    Interest Expense.  Interest expense increased during the year ended December 31, 2009, as compared with fiscal 2008, primarily due to increased interest expense of $1.5 million incurred on the line of credit and term notes which were obtained to finance a portion of the IDT NSE and RMI acquisitions.
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2009
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Other income and expense, net
  $ (4 )     0.0 %   $ (59 )     0.0 %   $ 55       -93.2 %
 
    Other Income and Expense, net.  Other income and expense, net increased during the year ended December 31, 2009, as compared with fiscal 2008, primarily due to a decrease in software license write-offs incurred in 2008.
 
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2009
   
Percentage
of
Pre-Tax Income
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Pre-Tax Income
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Benefit from income taxes
  $ (3,060 )     6.1 %   $ (1,937 )     -118.1 %   $ (1,123 )     58.0 %
 
    Benefit from income taxes. During the year ended December 31, 2009, we recorded an income tax benefit of $3.1 million. Our effective tax rate of 6.1% for the year ended December 31, 2009 was primarily driven by a rate differential for book income generated in foreign jurisdictions, the tax impact of non-deductible expenses such as stock-based compensation expenses and acquisition related expenses and adjustments to certain tax reserves relating to an intercompany license agreement.
 
Stock-Based Compensation Expense
 
    On January 1, 2006, we adopted ASC 718, on the modified prospective application method, which requires the measurement and recognition of compensation expense for all share-based awards made to our employees and directors including employee stock options and employee stock purchases outstanding as of and awarded after January 1, 2006. The total stock-based compensation expense recognized for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007 was as follows (in thousands):
 
   
Year ended December 31,
 
   
2009
   
2008
   
2007
 
Cost of revenue
  $ 672     $ 1,030     $ 747  
Research and development
    21,527       9,474       9,933  
Selling, general and administrative
    18,556       5,988       5,366  
Total stock-based compensation expense
  $ 40,755     $ 16,492     $ 16,046  
 
    In addition, we capitalized approximately $0.1 million and $0.2 million of stock-based compensation in inventory as of December 31, 2009 and 2008 which represented indirect manufacturing costs related to our inventory.
 
 
Results of Operations

Comparison of Year Ended December 31, 2008 to Year Ended December 31, 2007

Revenue, cost of revenue and gross profit
 
    The table below sets forth the fluctuations in revenue, cost of revenue and gross profit data for the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007 (in thousands, except percentage data):
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2007
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Revenue
  $ 139,927       100.0 %   $ 109,033       100.0 %   $ 30,894       28.3 %
Cost of revenue
    61,616       44.0 %     44,732       41.0 %     16,884       37.7 %
Gross profit
  $ 78,311       56.0 %   $ 64,301       59.0 %   $ 14,010       21.8 %
 
    Revenue. Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2008 increased by $30.9 million compared with that of the year ended December 31, 2007. Revenue from sales to Wintec, Cisco and Cisco’s contract manufacturers (collectively “Cisco”) represented $52.7 million of our total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2008, compared to $55.1 million during the year ended December 31, 2007. The decrease in sales to Cisco was primarily due to a decrease of $22.4 million from 2007 in revenue from sales of NL5000 products, although this decline was largely offset by increased revenue of our new and additional products for Cisco, including NL7000, NL8000, and TCAM2 products which increased $20.7 million.  Revenue from non-Cisco customers represented $87.2 million of total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2008 compared with $53.9 million during the year end December 31, 2007.  The increase in sales to non-Cisco customers was driven primarily by increased demand for our products in several emerging new markets, such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which we address with the PLPs that we acquired in the Aeluros acquisition, and IPTV. During the year ended December 31, 2008, Alcatel-Lucent accounted for 12% of our total revenue compared with 11% in 2007.
 
    Cost of Revenue/Gross Profit/Gross Margin. Cost of revenue for the year ended December 31, 2008 increased by $16.9 million compared with that of the year ended December 31, 2007.  Cost of revenue increased primarily due to the increase in product sales. Cost of revenue in 2008 also included amortization of intangible assets, and a provision for excess and obsolete inventory and product scrap charges. Cost of revenue for the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, respectively, included $11.9 million and $5.0 million of amortization of intangible assets expense, and $2.4 million and $1.0 million of a provision for excess and obsolete inventory.
 
 
Operating expenses
 
    The table below sets forth operating expense data for the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007 (in thousands, except percentage data):
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2007
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Operating expenses:
                                   
Research and development
  $ 51,607       36.9 %   $ 45,175       41.4 %   $ 6,432       14.2 %
In-process research and development
    -       0.0 %     1,610       1.5 %     (1,610 )     -100.0 %
Selling, general and administrative
    26,567       19.0 %     19,672       18.0 %     6,895       35.0 %
Total operating expenses
  $ 78,174       55.9 %   $ 66,457       60.9 %   $ 11,717       17.6 %
 
    Research and Development Expenses. Research and development expenses increased during the year ended December 31, 2008, as compared to fiscal 2007, primarily due to increases in payroll related expenses of $3.8 million, product development and qualification expenses of $2.1 million, and consulting and outside vendor expenses of $1.0 million, which were partially offset by a decrease of stock-based compensation expense of $0.5 million. The increase in payroll related expenses resulted primarily from increases in engineering headcount in India to support our new product development efforts, and in the U.S. as a result of the Aeluros Acquisition. The increase in product development and qualification expense was primarily due to the production qualification and characterization of our newly introduced knowledge-based processors. The remainder of the increase in research and development expenses was caused by individually minor items.
 
    In-Process Research and Development.  During the year ended December 31, 2007, we recorded $1.6 million of in-process research and development charge related to the Aeluros Acquisition at the close of the acquisition.
 
    Selling, General and Administrative Expenses. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased during the year ended December 31, 2008, as compared with fiscal 2007, primarily due to increased commission expenses of $1.7 million, payroll related expenses of $1.7 million, amortization expense of intangible assets – customer relationships of $1.1 million, consulting and outside vendor expense of $1.0 million, other professional services fess of $0.4 million, stock-based compensation expense of $0.6 million, and travel expense of $0.1 million. The increase in commission expenses was primarily a result of our increase in revenue. The increase in payroll related expenses and stock-based compensation expense resulted primarily from increased headcount to support our growing operations in the sales and marketing areas. The remainder of the fluctuation in selling, general and administrative expenses was caused by individually minor items.
 
 
Other items
 
    The tables below set forth other items for the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007 (in thousands, except percentage data):
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2007
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Interest income
  $ 1,595       1.1 %   $ 4,431       4.1 %   $ (2,836 )     -64.0 %
 
    Interest Income.  Interest income decreased during the year ended December 31, 2008, as compared with fiscal 2007, primarily due to decreased interest income on cash and cash equivalents, and short-term investment balances as a result of lower yields on our investments and lower invested balances after paying approximately $71.7 million in connection with the acquisitions of the TCAM2 Products from Cypress and the Aeluros Acquisition.

   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2007
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Interest expense
  $ (33 )     0.0 %   $ -       -     $ (33 )     -100.0 %
 
    Interest Expense.  Interest expense increased during the year ended December 31, 2008, as compared with fiscal 2007, primarily due to increased interest expense incurred on our software licenses.
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year ended
December 31,
2007
   
Percentage
of
Revenue
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Other income and expense, net
  $ (59 )     0.0 %   $ 32       0.0 %   $ (91     -284.4 %
 
    Other Income and Expense, net.  Other income and expense, net decreased during the year ended December 31, 2008, as compared with fiscal 2007, primarily due to software license write-offs incurred in 2008.
 
   
Year ended
December 31,
2008
   
Percentage
of
Pre-Tax Income
   
Year ended
December 31,
2007
   
Percentage
of
Pre-Tax Income
   
Year-to-Year
Change
   
Percentage
Change
 
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes
  $ (1,937 )     -1.4 %   $ (288 )     -0.3 %   $ (1,649 )     572.6 %
 
    Provision for income taxes. During the year ended December 31, 2008, we recorded an income tax benefit of $1.9 million. Our effective tax rate of 35% for the year ended December 31, 2008 was primarily driven by a rate differential for book income generated in foreign jurisdictions and the tax impact of non-deductible stock options.
 
 
Liquidity and Capital Resources

Financial Condition
 
    Our principal sources of liquidity are our cash and cash equivalents and our available senior secured revolving credit facility of $25 million with a group of banks executed in June 2009. As of December 31, 2009 our cash balance was $44.3 million. As of December 31, 2009 there were no amounts outstanding related to our senior secured term notes and our senior secured credit facility.
 
    Our cash and cash equivalents are invested with financial institutions in deposits that, at times, may exceed federally insured limits. To date, we have not experienced any losses on our deposits of cash and cash equivalents. However, we believe that the capital and credit markets have been experiencing unprecedented levels of volatility and disruption and that recent U.S. sub-prime mortgage defaults have had a significant impact across various sectors of the financial markets, causing global credit and liquidity issues. We can provide no assurance that our cash and cash equivalents will not be adversely affected by these matters in the future.
 
    Under our revolving senior secured credit facility, we are required to satisfy certain financial ratio and other covenants, as described in Note 14 of the Notes to our Consolidated Financial Statements. We were in compliance with the debt covenants under the credit agreements applicable to this facility as of December 31, 2009.
 
    The table below (in thousands) sets forth the key components of cash flow for the years ended December 31, 2009, 2008 and 2007:
 
   
Year ended December 31,